Blue Eyes in a Little Girl
by Lothe
Summary: [Complete] Only three Angels remain before the end of the Time of Trials. But the final hours can be only a backdrop as each member of NERV struggles with their own fate. Rated for intense violence and strong language.
1. Echoes

****

  
Credits

_Neon Genesis Evangelion_ (Shinseiki Evangelion) is copyright © 1996 to 2003 Studio Gainax. Everything here is theirs, even most of the story. Of course, since everyone over there at Gainax knows what it means to be a starving, down-on-his-luck artist, I'm sure they wouldn't even think about suing a loyal fan like me…right?

**A Spoiler Warning!** This story covers episodes 22 through 24 of the series and contains major spoilers for the end of the series. If you haven't seen those episodes, and you want to see them without the slightest idea what happens, then go see them and then come back. Please come back.

Special thanks goes to Estara, who helped me very willingly and, uhm, helpfully with the German in this story. _Danke, ich spreche nicht die Deutsche!_

**An Important Note:** Somewhat surprisingly, a few people have asked me to continue this fic in their reviews. Unfortunately, _Blue Eyes_ is finished, BUT those looking for more should go check out my newly-debuted piece _Piano Solo_. It's a continuation fic for both the series and _Blue Eyes_; the only reason I didn't simply extend this piece was that I wanted to start it as a separate story. I'm very glad to see people are enjoying my work, and I do (sporadically _ ) update. Thanks!

~

  


Blue Eyes in a Little Girl

__

I. Echoes

Katsuragi Misato savored a brief moment of silence at NERV headquarters, relaxing in the staff quarters. A steaming mug of coffee sat on the endtable next to her, though she wished very much that she could make the thick brown liquid transmogrify into some form of alcohol.

Briefly the Major contemplated sneaking vodka into the base so she could spike the coffee, but quickly dismissed the idea. _That's pathetic,_ she scolded herself. _You may be a bum, but you're not a _lowlife_._ She nearly smiled at her own reprimand, yet something stole her attention.

It was the sound of the room—silence. No one else seemed to be present. She checked her watch hurriedly, assuring herself that she was not supposed to be back on duty yet, then looked around again. No one else in the room.

Misato sighed inwardly. On any other day, Kaji Ryoji would have been leaning against the wall next to her, trying playfully to reignite their college romance. She would have been shooting him down, of course, but she realized now—now that he was gone—that Kaji was one of the few sources of true life in the NERV base.

__

If I ever see you again, I'm going to say those words I couldn't say eight years ago.

Bye.

Those were the last words she ever heard from him. She hadn't even heard them _from_ him, only from the grainy answering-machine tape that still sat, unrewound and unerased, in her living room.

"Damn you," she whispered to the air. "You self-centered bastard. Why'd you have to go and die…?" She could feel the tears beginning to well at the edges of her eyes again, a sensation she hated above all others.

Suddenly, without thinking, she clutched the mug of coffee in a death-grip, in one jerking motion pulling it to her lips, reclining both mug and neck and nearly throwing the burning liquid down her throat. She was still fighting tears and choked on the stuff, coughing violently. The coffee that had spilled from the mug was now spattered across her face and neck, throbbing and staining her shirt and vest in progressive shades of brown.

When the coughing fit finally subsided Misato set the mug back on the end table, now all but devoid of its former contents. There was still no one in the room. Her heart still ached, but she had succeeded in her goal—she no longer felt like crying.

****  
Ayanami Rei was absent at school that day.

****

"Rei?"

"Yes."

"We're going to check your physical integrity again today."  
  
"Yes."

"This will only hurt a little."

The girl did not so much as wince as Dr. Akagi drew blood. She did, though, sense that Ritsuko was feeling pensive, and not only about concentrating on her work. That was alright with her. Rei was used to making people feel awkward. It seemed to be a side-effect of her very existence, if one that did not appear in any of the good doctor's tests and examinations.

Ritsuko poked and prodded the girl with an array of other instruments, and finally stood still.

"Alright, Rei. It looks like you're still intact."

Rei nodded silently and stood up. She said a quiet word of thanks as she left the room, leaving Ritsuko behind.

As she walked through the corridor back to the main control area, Rei noticed Ibuki Maya coming toward her. "Hello Rei," the woman said as she passed. Rei nodded a greeting and then the two were no longer in sight of each other.

Rei considered Dr. Ibuki as the gap widened. The young woman always seemed to regard the First Child with a mix of fascination and trepidation, simultaneously attracted and repelled.

_Ikari-kun is like that, too,_ Rei thought. But she corrected herself. _No. He is not. His attraction is something else. A purer motive. But one which I do not understand._

She felt no need to ponder the issue further, and the hallway was filled with the sound of her steps echoing hollow off the walls.

****

Ritsuko gathered up her tools and instruments without a word, putting them back on shelves and in sleeves.

_We call them Children,_ she mused, _but they never will be._

A clack as she tried to replace a stethoscope, in her absent-mindedness ramming it against the cupboard instead of putting it inside. Unfazed and now more aware, she put the tool back in its proper place.

Sighing, she sat down on the now-empty examination table. She reached into her pocket out of habit before she remembered she had surrendered all of her cigarettes before entering the sterile hospital area.

_So,_ she said to herself, _what if one day I do my tests and have to tell her…that she's not still intact?_

Smiling sardonically, she answered her own question.

__

We'll get a new one.

"There are plenty more where that came from," she muttered to the air. "Thanks to you, Commander Ikari. You've created a monster. And she doesn't even know she's a monster. A soulless beast."

_But they do have a soul_, another voice told her. It was her mother's voice, come as ever to argue a point of logic.

_Maybe,_ Ritsuko replied. _But just one soul. Just one, and so many of them. All the others are just bodies. Carcasses._

Things.

She waited, but there was no reply.

****

Misato arrived in the control room to prepare for the synch tests that evening. She had learned long ago that for her this meant mostly shuffling papers around on her personal desk, but at least this way she could create a veneer of productivity.

The techs gave their reports in turn, all variations on "systems normal", and Misato departed for the testing room. Ritsuko and Maya were already there, adjusting graphs and toying with buttons so numerous that Misato could barely one from another.

"Everything's about ready," Ritsuko told her. "All we need now are the pilots."

"School doesn't let out for another few hours."

Ritsuko nodded wordlessly and pressed a series of keys. The display switched outputs several times and finally settled on a graph displaying three colored lines. All flat at the moment, without anything to read. Misato looked out into the giant testing bay and realized the plugs had not even been set adrift in the LCL yet.

"Something wrong, Major?"

Misato looked up, surprised to hear Ritsuko address her with a formal title. "No, why?" she said as casually as she could manage.

"You seem awfully quiet today."

"Nothing. It's nothing."

"Would this have to do with a certain ex-boyfriend?"

Misato bristled. "No! I don't care about him anymore!"

"Hmm." Ritsuko half-smiled and looked back at the computer readouts.

Misato headed for the door. "Call me if anything comes up," she said tersely.

"Will do, Major."

Had the door not been controlled by a machine, Misato would have slammed it shut behind her.

****

Sohryu Asuka Langley strode through the streets of Tokyo-3, Ikari Shinji trailing not far behind. Rei had not been in school that day, again. Asuka had long ago stopped wondering what she did on these days off, deciding she would never know the answer and that a girl like Rei wasn't worrying about in the first place.

The day was eminently clear and blue-skied, but the two children were headed to the enclosed corridors of the NERV base.

_They're always testing us,_ Asuka thought angrily. If it wasn't a physical examination it was a synch test or a psychological screening. There seemed to be no end to the number of times they could perform the exact same procedures and be dissatisfied with the results.

They had kept Shinji for a particularly long time after his battle with the fourteenth angel and ensuing entrapment inside Unit-01. Asuka had not been allowed access to much information regarding the event or anything surrounding it, but she gathered that the Third Child had been subjected to an almost nonstop battery of tests and evaluations for nearly a week afterward.

They were synch testing again that evening. It was a standard procedure, one she had undergone countless times since becoming a pilot, but Asuka had her doubts. They had intensified since the days before Liriel's attack, when Shinji had outperformed both of the other Children, though from what Asuka could tell it hadn't done him much good in the actual battle.

And now she stood in doubt of even her prospective scores tonight. Something had been nagging at her mind for almost three days, and she was at a loss to tell what it was. She could not force it to revelation, as she might have with a physical opponent; she could not connive or manipulate it into whispering in her ear what it was. And perhaps worst of all, she could not ignore it.

Before she realized how far she had come, the giant pyramid of NERV headquarters rose before her, dwarfing the young children by many times. A nameless technician was crouched by the door, tinkering none too delicately with a panel open on the side of the building.

"Door's not working," he said around a mouthful of wrench, not looking up from his task.

_At least they're trying to fix it,_ Asuka thought. She gestured angrily at Shinji, who shuffled forward and began to turn the manual-operation crank. Finally, after much huffing and heaving, the door was open enough that the two of them could bend down slightly and fit through.

They entered into a dim hallway which was merely a preface to the main base; a security precaution. From behind them they heard a loud crash and an even louder curse as something went wrong for the technician. Asuka mentally shrugged and carded open the door to the base itself.

These corridors were considerably brighter and less dingy; NERV seemed to take great pride in appearances. The halls of the base were also spacious, although traffic was so light in any given corridor that Asuka suspected it was one of the Commander's occasional excesses.

Asuka stopped at the women's changing room, Shinji stopping automatically behind her. Asuka walked toward the entrance, then turned and fixed him with a severe gaze.

"What, are you going to watch or something? The men's changing room is that way." She pointed down the hallway.

"Huh? Er…oh yeah."

_That moron_, Asuka thought, entering the changing room. _Can't do anything without somebody telling him. Like some kind of doll._

Rei was already in the changing room, pulling on her plug suit.

"Well speak of the devil," Asuka muttered under her breath. The other girl did not look up at the words.

"I saw you weren't at school today," Asuka said, speaking more directly to Rei.

"Dr. Akagi had need of me."

"They say you're not supposed to participate in after-school activities unless you've attended."

"Do they?"

Asuka snorted. "_Scheisse_. Humor is lost on the humorless."

"It was not humor," Rei said, inflectionless. "It was a deliberate attempt to provoke me."

"Yeah, well, it's all the same rule," Asuka said, climbing into her red raiments. "Emotion is lost on the emotionless."

"Mm." Rei sealed her plug suit and walked out of the changing room, toward the test bay.

Asuka fitted her own suit and sat down heavily on the bench in the middle of the room. She seemed to cease holding herself up, pouring all her weight down into the faux wood. The tickle in her mind had become a raging itch, begging to be discovered and yet concealing itself.

Asuka put her head in her hands and resisted the urge to sob openly. _Synch test. Have to do the synch test…the test…have to succeed this time…damn Shinji and his test scores…it doesn't mean anything…damn tests scores…it doesn't mean anything…_

In a sudden feat of sheer will Asuka pulled herself to her feet and strode out of the room, doing her best to appear confident. The test scores didn't mean anything, and she would prove it.

****

Ikari Gendo sat behind an indulgently large desk, face half-hidden behind steepled fingers. He faced his sub-commander, Fuyutsuki, without seeming to blink.

"Have we received the test scores yet, Professor?"

"They're just about to begin."

"Ah. How convenient. Inform me the moment the scores arrive."

"Of course. But if I might ask—"

"SEELE. They seem inordinately interested in sending us a fifth Child, but we have no Eva units free for him to pilot. I think it's time for a little act of _deus ex machina_, don't you?"

Turning before he left the room, Fuyutsuki smiled for a moment. "Of course, Commander. Although…SEELE, NERV. It is often difficult to tell who is the god and who is the machine."

Even Ikari allowed himself a brief half-smile. "It doesn't matter. The principle is the same."

****

Three pilots floated in the silent, inky blackness of their respective plugs, as Ritsuko, Misato, and a crew of others watched through cameras from far away. All three had closed their eyes, for within the plug there was nothing to be seen.

Numbers flashed incessantly, overlaid on the children's portraits. Very few of them held meaning for Misato, but the scientists seemed to understand every one. "Asuka's synch rate is dropping," Ritsuko muttered. Misato watched a graph, mapping itself in real time, trace a slow but steady downward arc.

"What's it mean?" she asked the scientist.

"It means there's some kind of psychological disturbance in the pilot."

"Are you sure it's psychological?" Misato asked. "I think it's 'that time' for her. Could that be causing it?"

"No," Ritsuko said confidently, shaking her head. "Physiological disruptions wouldn't affect the synch rate this much. Maybe a bit of a decline due to lack of concentration, but nothing as noticeable as this."

Misato pondered her response. She was at a loss to tell what might be causing such a "disturbance", although she was painfully aware that she was not privy to every detail of Asuka's life.

Ritsuko motioned to one of her assistants, who scrawled something on a sheet of paper and handed it to someone behind him.

"Alright," Ritsuko said into the mic. "The synch test is over. All pilots please disembark the plugs now."

The last Misato saw of the Children's faces was all three of them opening their eyes, before the screen faded to black.

****

Asuka pressed several buttons and heard an hydraulic hiss as the egress hatch of her plug opened. The light from the test bay was piercing after so long in utter blackness. From the room outside she heard the other plugs opening and their pilots emerging. She had a dark feeling that she had not scored surpassingly well on the synch test.

Combating the sick feeling in her stomach, Asuka pulled herself out of her plug and sat atop it, her knees pulled up to her chin, waiting for the techs to approach and retrieve her.

When the boat arrived she climbed silently into the platform that was raised up to her, saying nothing to the man piloting the craft. He seemed to be none the worse for lacking conversation with her, and she was glad for it. They docked at the edge of the plug bay and Asuka stepped back onto dry land.

She was glad to have been the last pilot retrieved; she did not want to meet up with the other Children. Without a word to her escort Asuka opened the door and walked out into the hallway, taking a sharp turn to the hallway that would eventually lead to the changing rooms.

When she arrived she found the room empty. Almost soundlessly she sloughed off her plug suit and donned the school uniform she had been wearing when she came. She folded her plug suit more neatly than usual and set it back into her locker.

She waited some time then, staring at the red garments piled against the military green of the surrounding metal. She thought nothing, made no sound.

Finally, before she thought of what she was doing, she closed the locker, a firm sound of metal colliding on metal echoing throughout the room. She turned and walked out of the changing room, content with the silence. The hall was empty, and vast, yet Asuka felt focused only on herself.

As she made a turn past the control room, she saw a familiar figure emerge through the metal door.

"Ah, Miss Sohryu."

Dr. Akagi turned toward her, holding a clip board. Asuka tensed; nothing good ever came of being addressed by your surname.

"I'd like a word with you about your synch scores."

****

_Dropped eight points?_ Asuka thought to herself as she left Ritsuko's office. _How…_

She walked out of the NERV base, maintaining the grave expression she had worn all day, refusing to let her distress show on her face. It was approaching darkness as she left the building and started for the apartment she shared with Misato and Shinji.

_The worst part is that he won't say anything,_ she seethed. _He'll just act all normal and humble. It'd be so much easier to take if he'd gloat._

Before she wanted to she had arrived at the apartment complex, and she walked in and took the elevator to her floor. She considered riding the elevator as far up as it would go, and then taking it all the way back down, over and over, until the world ended.

But when she arrived at her floor she stepped off and stood for a long moment, at length willing herself to walk to the door of their apartment and open it. From within she could hear the deep notes of Shinji's cello; Bach's _Minuet in C_.

Without even a muttered rude remark about the noise she shut the door and tossed her school bag to the floor. In even strides Asuka walked to her room, sliding the door shut and wishing—as she had done so many times she had lost count—that the flimsy thing had a lock on it.

She pulled off her school uniform, bothering to fold it only because she did not want to have to iron it some other time.

In the brief moment of transit between one skin and another, Asuka let her entire guard collapse. Her mouth crumpled from a taut line in a slight sigh, and her eyes filled with the sum total of the emotion she had kept from them all day. She pulled from her hair the red bows which held it in place during the day, subconsciously relishing the sensation of the soft strands as they cascaded down her back.

She shook her head once, scattering the hair from one side to the other before it settled back onto her skin.

Silently Asuka walked to her dresser and pulled out a pair of slightly oversized, fraying pink pajamas, and slipped into them. The sleeves hung loosely on her arms, but she was happy for the slight mobility it granted, and the coolness of the air that came in through the wrists.

Asuka crouched in the corner of her room, holding her knees to her chest. Now that she was once again aware of the world outside her room she could hear the cello still playing, although the song had changed. Now the dark, slow notes of Barber's _Adagio_ underscored her thoughts, seeming to penetrate throughout the apartment.

She heard the door open.

"I'm home!" Misato announced.

"Welcome home," Asuka murmured, knowing it was impossible for Misato to hear. She caught the padding footfalls of PenPen coming to greet his master, and Misato bending to pick him up.

"I'll get dinner ready," Misato said. Asuka turned her face downward into her knees, struggling to staunch the tears she knew were trying to escape.

Misato's footsteps moved to the kitchen, and the girl could detect faintly the sounds of the older woman rummaging through pots and pans to get at some desired tool.

From another room, the sounds of the cello played on.


	2. Stuffing

__

  
II. Stuffing

Night was nearly on now, though still young. Asuka finally emerged from her room when dinner was announced, shuffling along and fighting once again to keep a poker face.

Misato seemed vaguely surprised to see Asuka already in her pajamas, but neither of them said anything aloud and the moment passed. Silently Asuka pulled _ramen_ noodles into her mouth, no longer thinking consciously about using the chopsticks.

__

All that work and she ended up making instant-noodles anyway, Asuka thought. _At least they aren't burned, or frozen, or rock hard, or…_ Her thoughts drifted off into the silence as she drained the last of the ramen from her cup.

"I'm finished," she said, standing up and sliding her chair into the table again. She picked up her noodle cup and tossed it in the trash with a satisfying rustle of plastic.

She went to her room again and pulled from her stockpile of personal possessions a picture book, written only with simple German captions, the cover bearing a watercolor depiction of a young girl with a little red cap. Asuka sat cross-legged on the floor of her room and opened the book, interested not so much in the words as the pictures.

She flipped the pages distantly, observing the myriad of dim colors and accepting the smooth feel of the glossy paper on her fingers.

She admitted, only to herself, that it was a very pretty book.

****

At NERV headquarters life continued unabated despite the onset of night. Fuyutsuki walked into Gendo's vast office, holding a piece of paper in one hand.

"Dr. Akagi has just furnished me with the synch test results," he said.

  
"And?"

"The Second Child's synch ratio fell eight points today."

  
Gendo chuckled. "How terribly convenient." He paused as though considering, although Fuyutsuki had a sneaking suspicion that Commander Ikari had already done all the thinking well beforehand.

"Put the Second Child on probation. If she fails again, she will have to resign her status as a pilot."

"Yes, sir. But if I may be so bold, I have noticed that there is no information on a Fifth Child anywhere to be found. What is SEELE planning?"

"Certainly I shouldn't know, Professor. They probably found some new way to interprety those musty scrolls of theirs."

"SEELE certainly puts full stock in them."

"_Please_." Gendo leaned his head back in his chair, looking, for once in his life, like a genuine human being. "SEELE is collectively becoming so senile that even _they_ can barely sort out why they're doing this any more."

"And so this is where the puppet becomes the puppeteer?"

The Commander allowed himself a slight smile. "Yes," he said, sitting forward again in his desk. "Something like that."

****

Misato had transferred the answering machine to her bedroom, where it no longer served its purpose as a receiver of messages but was instead a captor of memories, emblazoned forever with one voice, and one voice only.

She jammed the REWIND button, listening to the screech as the tape flew backward, and the sudden silence as it clicked to a stop. She sat for a moment, staring at its featureless cover, wishing she had never had to hear the words it contained.

With great force of will she pressed the PLAY button again, waiting for Kaji's rough voice to come through the grainy speaker.

"Katsuragi, it's me. I'm sure you're listening to this message, especially after I caused you so much trouble…sorry."

She pitched back her head and downed half a beer in one gulp.

__

When did I learn to do that? she thought, sick inside. She looked at the three other cans that lay empty, only one standing upright. _Did I really drink all those just sitting here?_

She sighed deeply and set her head on the desk next to the answering machine. _And I'm supposed to be a Major with the group that's gonna save the world._

"Bye."

__

Click.

****

In her room, Asuka pulled her _futon_ out of the closet and unrolled it, for once not noticing that she did not have even a foot of space on either side of her. She stood up and switched off the lights, only a bit of brightness filtering in underneath the door. She crouched down near the bed, pulled the sheets aside, lay down, and rolled them back.

She watched the small rift between the bottom of the door and the ground, detecting no motion beyond. She thought she had heard Mr. Kaji's voice not long ago, but passed it off as some strange auditory illusion. Or not. It wasn't unlike him to call, and Misato to ignore him, leaving the answering machine to take his message.

Asuka heard Shinji lift himself from the couch, his loose pajamas rustling as he moved. PenPen's soft footsteps ensued, examining the source of the noise. She could hear water running briefly as Shinji brushed his teeth, and then no further noise: he had gone to bed.

Finally Asuka closed her eyes, her entire weight settling down into the floor. Much more quickly than she realized, or would remember, she was asleep.

****

Asuka stood, covered by her plug suit, in darkness. She saw another girl before her, much younger than her—in fact, herself, so many years ago. A lone beam of dim, dusty light shined onto the space between them, illuminating a small doll. Its neck seam had been torn asunder so its head hung at a wild angle, wads of stuffing squeezing out through the rent.

The little girl fixed Asuka with a stony glare, pointedly ignoring the battered toy on the ground.

"You're not crying?" Asuka asked.

"No," the girl said, crossing her arms. "I won't cry."

"Don't you mourn a dead doll?"

"_Nein! Ich bin ein starkes kleins Mädchen!_"

Asuka started slightly at the fury in the girl's voice, driven back as though her hostility was a physical force.

Suddenly Asuka, too, became very angry. "Cry, dammit!"

She hefted the girl in one hand and gave her a mighty slap across the face, then sent her flying backwards.

The girl pulled herself to a sitting position and glared at Asuka, running her hand over her cheek where she'd been slapped.

"Your synch rate dropped eight points," the girl said viciously. "Cry about _that_."

For a moment Asuka was struck dumb, then she took a full step forward as though to intimidate the child.

"You're the one who made me do that!" she shouted. "You made me fail!"

The little girl had climbed to her feet again. "I _am_ you!" she returned, with all the strength her voice could muster. "You failed yourself!"

Asuka dropped her head and turned from the girl. "Go away," she muttered. "Go away and leave me alone."

"Someone else will just take my place," the girl said. "Maybe Shinji."

Asuka whipped back around. "No! I hate Shinji!"

The little girl smirked.

"Not as much as you hate me."

****

When the next day dawned Asuka did not feel refreshed, but as though she had not slept at all.

She took her school uniform from its place on her dresser and headed for the bathroom. It was only with great reluctance that she took off her pajamas and turned on the shower, which was first too cold and then too hot, and Asuka wrestled with the dial for nearly half a minute before the water turned to an acceptable temperature.

The running water drowned out all other sounds, and for that Asuka was glad. But the water did not feel as inviting today as it did most mornings; it chafed on her skin and weighed down her hair. Sooner than usual she turned off the shower and ran the towel fiercely over her hair, trying to let out as much water as she could.

She tried to dry her body, but the towel, too, seemed not soft and friendly but rough, and she put on her school uniform with moisture still clinging to her skin.

When Asuka came out of the bathroom she saw Shinji eating, but Misato was nowhere to be found. Asuka tossed her pajamas into her bedroom and prepared a couple of eggs for herself. Wordlessly she sat down across from Shinji, who was chewing slowly on a bowl of plain rice.

The lack of conversation did not seem to bother Shinji, but Asuka found it awkward, although she had no particular desire to talk to Shinji. She finished her eggs as quickly as she could without looking as though she was rushing, then grabbed her bookbag and lunch and headed out the door.

On the horizon, a few dark clouds gathered, but for the moment the sky was polished and blue.

Asuka got to school early, but it was some time before Shinji appeared.

****

After a nearly sleepless night and many, many hours spent sitting before the answering machine, Misato pulled herself to her feet. Her body resisted; even standing up her torso slumped forward as though without support. She slid her door open and stepped out into the apartment.

It had long since been vacated by its other two inhabitants, although PenPen was still wandering about, searching for his breakfast.

"I'm sorry, PenPen," Misato murmured, and the bird looked up at her briefly before returning to the hunt. Misato pulled some food from various drawers and cupboards—some for the penguin, some for herself—and began preparing everything.

She ate for a long while. She knew she was late for work, but no longer cared.

After at least another hour sitting at the table, chewing silently on her food, Misato forced herself to stand and deposited the remaining edibles in the trash. Methodically she washed the plate and chopsticks and returned them to their respective storage.

Finally she grabbed her jacket from the rack and left the apartment, locking the door behind her. She climbed into her car and drove at a surprisingly sober speed toward the NERV base.

When she arrived she showed her card to the gate guard and drove into the parking garage. It was not large and was mostly full with the vehicles of other staffers who had come considerably earlier—people she usually would have been present to greet on arrival, but not today.

At length Misato found a parking spot and gratefully shut the car off. She stepped out and made her way over to the elevator. She pressed the button for the main base and it kicked to life, ancient machinery emitting groans of protest that indicated they did not come from the same technological era as the work which had produced the robots and equipment in the rest of the facility.

Misato sighed inwardly at the familiar face awaiting her when she stepped off the elevator at the end of its descent.

"Ah, Major Katsuragi," Ritsuko said. "How good to see you."

"Let me guess…the Commander sent you to find out why I'm late?"

"Well, I suppose he'd appreciate if I did that for him, but that's not why I'm here." She held up a handful of printouts and diagrams. "We've detected some strange readings in the vicinity of the moon. It's probably nothing, but I thought you might want to be ready in the command center just in case."

"Alright. If something does happen, how quickly can we get the pilots here?"

"Three minutes and forty-five seconds, if we break every traffic law in Japan."

"And if we don't?"

"Anywhere from three minutes to ten or fifteen, depending how many green lights we can hit."

Misato resisted the urge to slap her forehead and walked past Ritsuko for the command center. The Doctor's even footsteps followed close behind.

Activity at NERV's heart was minimal; Misato assumed a position in the center of the room, just in front of Commander Ikari's excessively-tall dais. "Anything new to report?"

  
"No, m'am," one of the techs responded.

"Alright. Alert me if there is, and prepare to retrieve the pilots as quickly as possible."

"Understood."

All was calm, but Misato could sense the tension in the air.

****

At school, several hours had passed without any genuinely useful information being conveyed to the students by the teacher. Asuka had already managed to complete most of the night's homework and was quickly becoming bored again.

With terrible suddenness, a call came over the P.A. system.

"Will Ayanami Rei, Ikari Shinji, and Sohryu Asuka Langley please report to the office immediately. Repeat…"

Asuka was caught off guard, and Shinji seemed apprehensive, although as might be expected, Rei showed no emotion whatever. They got out of their seats and the teacher waved them on. Asuka saw Shinji look over to Kensuke, one of the few people in the room who might truly understand what this meant. He nodded and tried to wave encouragingly before Shinji turned with the others and left the room.

They did their best to hurry to the office, the only three people in the entire hallway.

When they arrived, they found Misato waiting for them, a grim expression on her face.

"Come on," she said, and without even a word to the man behind the desk turned them back out the door and led them to the parking lot. The clouds which were gathering earlier had now arrived in full force, splitting open and pouring their contents down over the world. The four NERV agents rushed to Misato's battered blue car, pulling the doors open as quickly as they could and slamming them shut again to avoid soaking either themselves or the car.

When the dust had settled, Asuka was riding shotgun beside Misato, while Shinji and Ayanami were in the back seat. Asuka imagined that the setup must have made Shinji rather uncomfortable, but she knew she would not have been any happier sitting next to Wonder Girl.

Misato jammed the key in the ignition and turned it roughly; Asuka thought perhaps there was something more than a simple emergency bothering her. She pulled out of the parking lot and began blazing through the streets of Tokyo-3. The rain pounded on the car's roof, creating a din so loud it all but ruled out the possibility of asking Misato what was happening before they arrived at the NERV base.

In what must have been two and a half minutes, and half a dozen very close-cut corners, they found themselves at Headquarters, where Misato was only slightly more careful in re-assuming her parking spot.

When the four of them climbed out of the car, they could still see the rain coming down in huge, white sheets through the open spaces between the ceiling and the protective barrier. The air was wet now, and cool; Asuka much preferred it to the overbearing warmth of constant sun.

Misato and the Children dashed to the elevator, making no attempt to conceal the urgency of their mission. In the elevator, Misato gave them a hurried briefing.

"There's something funny going on just outside Earth orbit," she informed them. "We don't know quite what it is, or what it's doing, but we _do_ know it's an Angel and that it doesn't look friendly. But here's the catch. It's a few hundred meters outside the firing range of even our long-range cannons. We're going to sortie Unit 02 with a positron rifle and station it at waypoint Alpha, it'll be marked on your map when you get up there. Unit 00 will deploy as backup with another rifle."

Asuka and Rei both nodded.

  
"Unit 01 is to remain frozen, I don't have the authority to release it."

Shinji nodded, too, but his expression seemed more one of relief.

"The two sortied units are to maintain their positions until given further orders. We're hoping the Angel will come a little closer so it's within firing range, but we just don't know."

At that moment the elevator _ding_ed and the doors slid open.

"Alright," Misato said as they stepped out. "I'm headed for the commander center. You three, get into your plug suits. Even you, Shinji—just in case."

"Yes, m'am."

"Asuka and Rei, in your Evas as soon as you're dressed."

"Yes m'am," they both replied.

"Then let's move!"

Misato rushed off for the command center, while the three Children, for once setting aside their hostilities, went to the locker rooms.

Asuka and Rei changed into their plug suits without looking at each other, and without saying a word. Asuka did not know what was in the sky above Earth, but she did know that it would be her final test.

__

If I can't beat this thing…with my synch scores last time, there's no way they're going to put me back in an Eva.

She pushed her locker back shut, quietly this time, so it locked on the first try. Then she came back out of the locker room and headed for the Eva cages, Rei's footsteps following close behind. She could not find any hint of Shinji or his whereabouts.

__

For once they're not sending out Shinji the Hero, she sneered to herself. _They must not think much of this Angel._

Before she wanted to, Asuka had arrived at the cages, where her Eva stood tall and menacing—but lifeless.

She stood before it for a brief moment, staring it down. "Hrmph," she muttered. "You _need_ me, you oversized doll. If you ever want to have any semblance of life at all, you need me. So you'd damn well better do what I say."

She climbed the lift to the plug. She spun the hatch, registering the familiar hiss as the tube opened. At first it was pitch black once she had closed the hatch again. A few soft lights came on before the plug itself activated. Asuka worked her way into the chair at the bottom of the plug, flipping switches and pressing buttons here and there.

A voice sounded over the radio. "Commencing LCL injection."

The strange, semi-clear substance flooded into the tube from all directions. Asuka did her best to breathe through it, taking a few seconds before she had fully adjusted to the sensation of voluntarily inhaling liquid. 

Now the plug started up in earnest. A brief rainbow of flashing lights assaulted her before the systems settled on a soft yellow-white glow that sufficiently illuminated her command consoles without wasting power. Through the viewscreen she could see the inside of the Eva cage. Inset on the display was a small map indicating the waypoint Alpha Misato had mentioned to her.

There was a slight jolt as giant machinery dragged her Eva onto the launch catapult. Just within her peripheral vision, she could see Rei's Unit 00 undergoing the same process. Unit 01 was still hidden somewhere inside the base.

Misato's face appeared in another small box on Asuka's screen, looking more tense than usual.

"The Angel still hasn't moved, nor shown any signs of activity," she informed them. "Do you both understand your mission?"

Over the radio, two voices answered, "Yes, m'am!"

"Alright then," Misato said, her face seeming to darken even more.

"Unit 02—launch!"


	3. Cause

_III. Cause_

Asuka's Eva made a rapid ascent up the launch tube to the surface of Tokyo-3. The rain was still pouring down, so hard that she could feel the vibration even within her Eva. She stood for a moment at the top, looking out onto the grey cityscape.

Far, far in the distance she could make out a slight glow in the sky, the only indication of the presence of the fifteenth Angel. Her Eva took a hesitant step forward.

"Target is still out of range," a tech report over the radio.

Then Misato's voice: "Eva Unit 02, proceed to waypoint Alpha. Unit 00 will be launched shortly."

"Understood."

Asuka glanced at the small map in her display, a glowing green dot marking the waypoint. She mentally urged her Eva onward, and the giant machine stepped out of the launch shaft. She maneuvered carefully through the dingy urban streets, trying not to crush any cars or signposts.

As she moved, she heard the announcement over the radio. "Unit 00, launch."

Another launch shaft emerged from the street not far away, and in short order a metal behemoth filled the space it left, coated in deep blue armor plates and bearing a single, red 'eye'. It, too, stepped away from its shaft and into the city, taking up another position not far from Unit 02.

Asuka stopped moving at the appointed place, hefting the rifle onto her Eva's shoulder. The giant length of metal tube was relatively unimpressive, but Asuka understood the incredible power it contained.

In the command center, the gathered staffers debated what to do with the still, silent enemy.

"We can't attack something in orbit," one tech said. "But it doesn't look like it's coming down here any time soon."

"Can we leave it be?" Misato asked. "If it's shown no hostile signs..."

"Too dangerous," Commander Ikari said from above her. "Even if it _is_ inert, it is still the fifteenth angel and we must still destroy it."

"Yes, sir."

Suddenly Asuka's voice crackled across the radio, ringing throughout the room from large speakers.

"This has taken long enough!" she shouted. "To hell with weapons limitations!"

The red Eva charged forward, bringing its rifle to bear. With even less warning than Asuka had given her enemy, light descended from the clouds to rest upon the Evangelion.

"What...what the hell!?" Asuka cried. "What? No!"

She grabbed her head, fighting the intrusive sense that now probed her mind. Her Eva did likewise, convulsing in the same manner as its tortured pilot.

"No! Stop this!"

In the command center, Misato and the others could only listen with horrible detachment, not understanding what was happening. Maya's eyes flicked across the screen.

"Pilot's mental signs are off the charts!" she shouted. "There are _two minds_ registering on the graph!"

"What!?" Misato said, louder than she'd intended. "You mean..."

"The Angel has invaded the pilot's psyche," Ritsuko finished.

"_You bastard! Stop this!! Let me go!_"

"I can't tell which is which anymore!"

Asuka seemed to regain her wits long enough to wrench the trigger on her rifle, firing a volley of pink energy balls which arched into the sky and fell several thousand meters short of their intended target.

"Where did those shots land?" Gendo asked calmly from the dais.

"No telling, sir!" Shigeru replied. "We can't devote the resources to tracking them at the moment!"

Gendo's displeasure was nearly palpable, but he kept his peace.

Asuka had returned to her frenzied screaming, her robot twisting horribly under her control.

"_Bastard!! Get out of my mind! It's raping my mind!!_"

"Rei!" Misato shouted into the transceiver. "Get up there and see if you can't—"

"It will not work," Gendo said evenly. "But I know something that will." He turned on a personal radio on his dais. "Rei, return to Terminal Dogma and retrieve the Lance of Longinus."

At his side, Fuyutsuki gasped. "But sir! The Lance—"

"The Lance is needed _now_. Do not forget, Sub-Commander, that our primary directive is to defeat the Angels." He resumed speaking to Rei. "You will use the Lance to combat the Angel." He did not wait before issuing the order. "Proceed with the operation."

"_Damn you!! I'll kill you! You'll _die"

The Eva reached toward the sky as though to grab the Angel out of the air. The convulsions were not as pronounced now, but they vibrated its entire body. Sobbing had begun to run together with screams.

The giant blue robot walked backwards into the launch shaft, and the catapult dropped it back down at lightning speed.

"Rei, proceed immediately to the Dogma lift."

"Yes, sir." The girl's voice over the radio was frail and reserved, causing Misato to shiver for some unknown reason.

Almost before the catapult hit the ground Unit 00 had stepped off of it and was lumbering deeper into the base.

"Dogma lift has been reached," Maya reported.

"Release."

The robot began shooting downward again. Asuka's screams had become throaty and raw, and she was running out of ways to curse the enemy.

"Unit 00 has cleared the final Malbolgia. Approaching Terminal Dogma."

Fuyutsuki leaned over and whispered to the Commander. "Are you sure this is wise? SEELE will be quite upset when they find out what you've done."

"By that time we will have either destroyed the Angel or been destroyed by it. In the first case we will be justified in our actions, in the second it will no longer be an issue."

Fuyutsuki let slip a grim chuckle. "You aren't looking for justification, are you, Ikari? You want an excuse."

In Terminal Dogma, Rei stepped off the lift and into a vast, colorless wasteland. Far at the other end of the room was a gargantuan red cross, which nearly dwarfed even her own Eva. She traversed the space to it as quickly as she could manage, trying to avoid the strange protrusions scattered across the ground.

Mounted on the cross was a terrible monstrosity, a white giant with a mask bearing the seven-eyed sigil of SEELE.

"I've returned," Rei murmured to the beast.

She reached up and pulled a massive, brown spear from the creature's chest. The hole that should have resulted sealed instantly, leaving an unscarred white surface.

Rei returned to the lift, now fighting to balance her Eva against the weight of the spear. She mounted the lift and flew back up the shaft.

"Unit 00 ascending," Maya intoned.

The Commander opened his radio link again. "Rei. Proceed the surface as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir." Again, that frightening voice, so devoid of any emotion.

"_Verdammt! D... Du Arschloch!_" Asuka could not seem to find appropriately vulgar words to express her rage and pain and fear.

"_Stop violating my mind! I'll kill you!_"

"Unit 00 has reached the launch catapult. Launching."

Maya was struggling to maintain a level voice. "One hundred meters to surface..."

"Rei." Gendo's voice never changed. "Prepare to release the Lance."

"Unit 00 has reached surface level!"

"_Bastard! Bastard! Die!_"

Unit 00 took several large, rapid steps forward and pulled its arm back as far as it could. Rei bore the arm forward with as much force as her Eva could muster, firing the spear at an incredible speed.

The Lance flew into the sky, dead on the intended course, running the Angel through thousands of meters away and above. The light around Unit 02 vanished instantly, and Asuka's roaring degenerated into a throaty mix of sobbing and gasping for air.

"Send a crew to retrieve the pilot, and bring back the Evangelion," Gendo said.

"Yes sir," Misato replied. She motioned to one of the techs, who picked up a phone on his console and set up an operation.

"Pilot status," Gendo said.

Maya replied quickly, switching through graphs and readouts. "Pilot of Unit 02 has been completely mentally incapacitated. I've never seen brain waves like this before; I don't think anyone in the world has." She paused a brief moment, but nothing was said. "Unit 00's pilot is intact mentally and physically."

"And the Evas?"

"Both are completely undamaged."

"Good." Gendo switched on his personal link to Unit 00. "Rei, return to the cage and prepare for debriefing. Doctor Akagi will want to run some psychograph tests to ensure you have not been harmed." He looked meaningfully at Ritsuko, and she nodded at the unspoken order.

"Yes, sir." Rei's voice seemed somehow even more hollow than usual, and Misato felt another shiver run down her spine.

"Retrieval operation has commenced," a tech called. "Unit 02's pilot should be extracted inside of twenty minutes, and Unit 02 itself will be back in the base in an hour."

"Good," Gendo said again, steepling his fingers in front of his face.

On the streets of Tokyo-3, the rain poured down.


	4. Effect

__

IV. Effect

Asuka was curled into a ball in her Eva's cockpit, trembling and sobbing. The probing, invasive sensation in her mind had ceased, but she could feel it now as though it were still there.

"My mind," she whispered to the air. "It was inside _my mind_…" She gasped, unexpecting, as another sob wracked her.

The sound of the rain outside seemed to have intensified, beating down on her Eva relentlessly, filling her thoughts with its constant noise.

A truck came rumbling down the street, its own sound lost to the pounding of the rain. Riding in it were four NERV techs, the extraction team assigned to the Second Child.

Some distance away, Unit 00 had already retreated into the launch shaft, returning to the depths of the base.

The truck stopped at the foot of Unit 02. "Require ejection of the plug before retrieval can commence," one of the techs said into his radio.

"Negative," a voice came on the other end. "Pilot is in no condition to eject the plug voluntarily. You're going to have to use the manual eject."

"Roger that."

The tech shut off his radio and motioned to one of his comrades. The truck rolled away from the robot, turned, and backed up against it again. Two of the staff climbed onto a portable lift set up on the back of the vehicle, which groaned mightily as it stretched to the sky with the techs on board.

When they had fully extended the lift, they contemplated how to make it across the surface of Unit 02, now slick with rain, to eject the plug.

"Wait, I see something," one of them said, pointing through the rain at the robot. Small metal protrusions rose up along the construct's surface. The techs could not divine what they had originally been intended for, but now they were to be appropriated as hand-holds.

They began the slow, treacherous climb across Unit 02, the fronts of their uniforms instantly soaking through with water.

"Here!" the first one called. "I've found the release switch! Stay back!"

He toyed with some buttons inset beneath an access hatch, trying to find the right combination.

Inside Unit 02 Asuka thought she could hear bodies and voices mixed in with the rain, but she did not know if they were real or hallucinatory, nor did she care. She had surrendered again to the sobbing, at a loss to control it. "_Ich bin vollkommen,_" she whispered to herself, "_Ich bin nicht wertlos…_"

She felt the something rumbling below the plug, then it shifted outward; the techs had committed a manual eject.

"No," she said to the plug, "No, don't abandon me…Don't get rid of me…"

One of the techs was radioing headquarters. "Manual ejection of the plug has been achieved. But how do we get to the pilot herself? She's obviously not coming out on her own."

Ritsuko's slightly annoyed voice replied to him. "Then go in there and fish her out. You can breathe in that stuff just as well as she can."

"Y-Yes m'am!" He shut off the communication without further remark.

"I'm going in there," he called to his companion.

"Alright," the other man returned. "I'll be waiting right here for ya."

The first tech pulled himself a little closer to the ingress hatch, struggling along the handholds, and finally tumbled into the plug.

The first problem was that he was suddenly surrounded by water. _It's just LCL_, he tried to convince himself. He knew all about the workings of the Eva, knew its circuits and operations inside and out. But he still had never had the sensation of deliberately breathing liquid, and for a moment he choked on the stuff.

When he regained control of himself, the tech turned down toward the cockpit proper. A young girl was huddled before the controls, which still blinked and flashed with life. She was shaking and murmuring to herself, her long brown hair running down the back of her crimson plug suit.

"Have located pilot," the tech said into his radio, surprised at how clearly he could speak through the liquid. "Commencing retrieval."

He kicked his feet, swimming down toward the girl. He could just barely make out what she was saying, switching sporadically between Japanese and a language he could not understand.

"_Ich bin vollkommen_…I don't want to die…_Ich bin nicht wertlos_…Don't make me die…"

He reached her at last and considered how to dislodge her. She seemed oblivious to his presence, never ceasing her muttering. The tech took her arm and tugged lightly to see if she would react. The only effect was to shift her; she did not aid him nor hinder him, but neither did she now return to her fetal position. Her eyes stared off into space, obviously in shock, in a manner which more than slightly unsettled the man beside her.

The tech turned to his radio. "We're going to need another man up here. I'll pull the pilot out of the plug but someone else will have to take her and pass her to my friend there."

"Roger that," a new voice responded. "Dispatching third retrieval personnel."

The tech waited with his charge for what seemed like hours. The only sound was the rain on the Eva, and Asuka's mantra.

"Putting in a new order," the tech said into his radio. "Have the medical staff check her out for laughs, but what this girl needs is the psych ward. I don't know what that critter did to her, but it broke her brain."

"Understood. Prepping medical and psychological teams."

It was at that moment that the tech could hear a muted knocking above them. _Must be our man_, he though. He grabbed Asuka's arm and pulled, gently at first and then harder, until she came free of the chair and began floating through the plug. The tech shifted her under his arm as though he were merely carrying a book or some luggage, then began to swim back upward with his legs and his one free arm.

When he finally reached the surface of the mech, he hefted the girl halfway through the egress hatch, and felt her supported anew by strong arms. The nameless limbs pulled her the rest of the way out. The first man could only imagine how precariously his assistant must be balanced.

"Give me the okay when I can pop out myself," he said into his radio.

"Will do."

In only a few minutes he got the word that the pilot had been passed successfully down the line, though both other techs had also noted her strange muttering. The first man pulled himself out of the plug, thinking he would be glad if he never had to climb into one again.

If he hadn't been wet enough from the LCL, the rain soaked him to the bone, somehow seeming to have intensified in the interval. He climbed, very carefully, across the surface of Unit 02, finally reaching the lift where his first companion and a tall, handsome man waited with the girl in his arms, who was still shivering and talking without pause.

"Thank God," his companion said when the rescuer arrived. "I thought we'd be standing out here forever."

"Right. Now let's get this kid back to base and then maybe we can hit the staff lounge for hot coffee and some dry clothes."

The other man thumbed a switch on a nearby control panel and the lift settled back toward the ground, its decidedly outdated materials screeching in protest.

"We should get this baby checked out, too," the newcomer said, patting the side of the machine. "Probably'll be rusted through by the time she's dry." The other two nodded, and all three sighed in relief when a firm _clack_ announced their arrival on _terra firma_.

There were already several teams of medical personnel waiting for them.

"Do you have the pilot?" a young woman demanded.

"Sure do, just as ordered," the tall man replied, carefully transferring the girl from his arms to hers.

"Alright!" she shouted to her crew. "Get this girl inside before she dies of pneumonia!" She turned back to the trio of rescuers. "Commander Ikari said you're dismissed for now. Major Katsuragi said to thank you."

"Well tell them thank you and you're welcome," the tall man replied, grinning. The woman turned and followed the other medical staffers who were retreating into the base. The tall man surveyed himself and his companions, soaked through and freezing cold, but relieved.

"How about that coffee, boys?"


	5. Mädchen

__

V. Mädchen

Gendo sat in his dimly-lit office, Akagi Ritsuko standing just beside and behind him, staring down one of the techs who had participated in the recent battle.

"What is the status of the Lance?" he asked grimly.

The tech was visibly trembling. "It reached escape velocity when Unit 00 launched it. It has achieved and maintained a lunar orbit, but we can't get it back with our equipment."

Commander Ikari looked displeased, but released the tech. The man scuttled out the door like a frightened rabbit.

"Ah well," Gendo said in the ensuing silence. "If I can't have the Lance, at least SEELE can't, either."

"There's nothing you like more than foiling those old men's plots, is there?" Ritsuko asked, her voice somewhere between mockery and accusation.

"No," Gendo replied earnestly. "Nothing at all."

Ritsuko nodded and added mentally, _Except torturing Children_.

****

Asuka seemed to progress quickly after the battle with the Angel. She regained cognitive and motor skills, and in due course would be released from the hospital and allowed to return to Misato's apartment. Among the highest echelons of NERV command, there were whispers that she might even be put back in an Eva.

Yet something had changed within her, been irrevocably altered by her encounter with the Angel's mind. Shinji could see it when he looked at her eyes: where once fierce pride had resided, now there was only an empty void, aching to be filled, or extinguished.

Much to the psychologists' objections, the medical staff chose to put the Second Child out of the hospital and treat her on an outpatient basis if necessary. Commander Ikari wanted a functional pilot as soon as possible and largely ignored the psych ward's pleas to keep the child in custody.

Asuka had expected Misato to take her home when she was released, but the Major was otherwise occupied when the release order came, and a kind nurse on the medical staff lent Asuka the money to take the subway to the stop nearest her apartment, which left the girl herself only a few blocks to walk.

When she arrived, she could hear the sound of Shinji's cello emerging faintly through the door, playing some piece whose name she did not know. She opened the door with barely a creak. Shinji seemed not to notice that she had come home, and she chose not to announce herself. Instead she leaned against the wall at the entrance, listening to the music from some other room.

Asuka let out a deep sigh, pushing every bit of air out of her lungs and then, with a long breath, let it back in.

_It was there, too,_ she thought, recalling the feeling of the fifteenth Angel. _It had its own mind, its own thinking, feeling mind…and it was invading mine. Violating me, forcing its way in…_

—

_The night was dark,_ but starlit. The wind whispered through the grass, rustling it gently. Asuka walked the dirt path, clothed in a red kimono, _zori_ sandals padding her feet against the pebbles and sharp things.

Seemingly without cause, she stop_s_. _Asuka_, the wind murmurs to her, _Asuka…_

She looks about as though for the source of the voice.

_Come to me, Asuka,_ the wind says. _We can live together._

"Who's there?" she asks. She is only a young girl, no voice would want with her.

__

We can die together, Asuka. Daddy doesn't want us anymore.

"Th—That's not true!" Asuka protests, panic rising in her. "Be quiet!"

__

Asuka, I can help you…free you …

"Be quiet! I can run from you!"

_But Asuka,_ the wind whispers, _how are you to run if you've no feet?_

And Asuka looks down, and she sees that she has no legs, no feet in her sandals, that she is supported only by nothing.

_Gaki, Gaki,_ the wind taunts, _hungry ghost, she wanders the world forever, feeding on her own _hatred_._

The night has become cloudy, and the clouds burst, and rain cascades down upon Asuka, creating a fine mist about her. Still she cannot discern the place speaking, perhaps, she thinks, because it is all around her; perhaps it is the voice of some angel come to bring her release…

_No!_ she tells herself, _Must not! It's only a trap, always a trap, everyone wants you dead! Must resist…_

__

Come with me, Asuka, you're not wanted. Why not leave?

__

The voice…is very persuasive…

Aren't I? Come with me, Asuka…

No! Go away! Go away! Go away go away go away go away!

But Asuka…don't you want relief? Don't you want to escape? Shed the bonds of those who want you not.

Go away!

O Asuka, I—

Silence, then. Only silence. Silence, rain, and tears.

—

She licked her lips and stepped deeper into the apartment. She drew nearer to the sound of the cello, never ceasing. It seemed to underscore her very existence, fill the apartment, fill her mind, fill even, for a brief instant, the darkness in her heart.

She walked toward the sound, everything around her intensifying as she came closer to it. Finally she arrived at the door to Shinji's room, still thrust open. The boy was playing with his back to the door, focused entirely on his instrument. Asuka paused for a moment.

"I'm home," she said softly.

The playing lulled and then ceased, and Shinji turned around slightly so he could see her.

"Welcome back," he said, smiling earnestly. "I didn't hear you come in."

He seemed perplexed at her silent gaze, so devoid of the faux malice he was used to seeing there. "I-I can stop, if you want…"

"No," she whispered. "Please."

He looked at her, surprised. Her face seemed to crumple and then the rest of her body succumbed and carried her to the floor. Shinji tried to be careful of the cello, getting up as quickly as he could and going to her.

"Asuka," he asked urgently, "Asuka, what's wrong?"

She tried to shake her head through her mounting sobs, but could only rock back and forth on her heels, crying. Shinji crouched next to her and put one hand on her shoulder. Uncertainly, he reached out and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer to him.

It was warm in his embrace, she realized; even in his arms she felt more at ease, safer. Shinji, a shield between herself and the world.

They sat that way for a long time.

****

Sunday found Rei in the bowels of NERV's medical offices, on the pretext of a physical exam. It had certainly been enough to get her past the more ignorant medical personnel; between her bearing and her status as First Child, very few people questioned her presence.

As she descended, Rei had recognized the room where the Second Child had been kept after her battle with the fifteenth Angel. She knew that Asuka had been released only a few days ago, but had not heard anything about the Child's present state of mind.

Rei contemplated that battle. Something in Asuka's furied shouting had disquieted her; she thought that perhaps it was the meeting of such a passionate soul with her own, emotionless being. It was not that she had no emotions, she reflected, but rather that she had not been properly instructed in how to use and express them. And so when the Third Child had saved her from a superheated entry plug, she had understood that what she felt was gladness, but had not known how to show it on her face, nor had she understood why Ikari-kun was crying when he was not sad.

_What silly creatures we humans are_, she thought.

_'We' are not human,_ she corrected herself gently. _I am something different, a doll with human form. I would not wish for all humanity to be like me._

She shook herself out of her trance as she approached Central Dogma. Ritsuko was waiting just outside the door for her: even with her permissions Rei was not granted unlimited access to this portion of the facility. The Doctor ran an ID card through the scanner alongside the door and it _whooshed_ open.

"Alright, Rei," Ritsuko said tonelessly. "You know what to do."

Rei nodded without a word and removed the deceptive school uniform she had been wearing, placing it in a characteristically tidy pile on a nearby table. She stole a brief glance at Ritsuko, and saw in her eyes a strange, almost frightening mixture of amusement and sorrow.

The girl ascended the scant few steps provided to the LCL tank, presently empty. She entered through a doorway designed to appear exactly as the rest of the tube, and nodded again at the scientist.

"Flooding tube," Ritsuko said, her voice indicating that the announcement was solely for the benefit of whatever tapes were recording at the moment and that she would just as soon have remained silent.

Dr. Akagi thumbed a switch on a control panel and a faintly orange liquid began to fill the tank Rei was in. The girl was unafraid, having had more than enough experience with the LCL in piloting an Eva. It rose around her, to her knees and then her chest and finally over her head, tinting the world a strange shade of half-crimson.

Ritsuko's fingers flew over the keypad, taking readings from blood pressure to heart rate to the thickness of the girl's skin.

"Administering stimulus," Ritsuko said, her tone never changing.

She pressed a button and a mild electric current raced through the LCL to surrounded and then penetrate Rei, who twitched reflexively.

"Everything is in working order," Ritsuko said to the air. "Systems are operational. Preparing for memory transfer."

A hum began, so low that Rei felt more than heard it. It never altered in intensity, but droned on and on. She felt something in her mind, a slight prickle running along the contours of her brain.

In only a minute both sensations had passed, and Ritsuko was speaking again.

"Memory transfer complete. Dummy system updated and operational." She turned to look more directly at the First Child. "You can come out now, Rei."

Doctor Akagi drained the LCL tube and Rei exited the same way she had entered and began to pull her school uniform back on.

There was silence for a moment.

"What is the status of the Second Child?" Rei asked out of the blue.

"Asuka?" Ritsuko asked, slightly surprised that Rei showed any interest in either of her fellow pilots, much less the girl who was so antagonistic toward her.

  
"Yes." Rei's voice was as flat as Ritsuko's had ever been, and it frightened the Doctor to imagine what must cause it to be so.

"The medical staff deemed her fit for release three days ago. She's returned to life with Major Katsuragi and the Third Child at their apartment and there have been no further…" she choked on the words. "…Incidents."

"What about the psychological staff?" Rei asked, seeming to sense the heart of the matter instinctively.

Ritsuko licked her lips. "Yes, well…" She seemed more than a little upset about this discussion, but Rei did not want to break it off. "They said we should keep her in custody for at least another week. Commander Ikari wasn't interested in their side of the story, he seems not to realize that the girl needs her mind as much as her body in order to pilot an Eva."

Her hidden rage had crept, for a bare moment, into her voice, but she quickly concealed it again.

"And so, she was released on Commander Ikari's orders. If I had had the final word we would have kept her here as long as the psychological staff damn well pleased." She caught herself a second time, and kept her voice studiously neutral. "As it is, we'll just have to be careful."

Rei nodded, having finished re-dressing, and looked to Ritsuko for final permission to depart. Doctor Akagi nodded and Rei left the room, and left Ritsuko to ponder whether there was any chance the Second Child would ever truly pilot an Eva again.

On her ascent, some people wondered at the First Child's sopping hair, but none stopped to question her.

****

Misato sat on a park bench, the premises all but deserted. On another bench, back-to-back with hers, sat Hyuga. They leaned over the backs of the benches and talked in what they hoped was an innocuous manner.

"Word is, production has already begun on the rest of the Eva series," Hyuga was saying.

"What?" Misato exclaimed, forcing herself to keep her voice to a harsh whisper. The tech nodded.

"Uh-huh. There's going to be eight total…they're supposedly being produced at seven sites around the world."

"I assume the Commander knows about this?"

"Well, I haven't told him myself, but no doubt he's got informants somewhere along the line that have relayed the information to him."

Misato nodded. "The old men must be getting antsy."

"They prefer to trust their weird predictions over their own instincts. Commander Ikari is the other way around."

"Are you saying you think you know who'll win this thing?"

"I think there's no need for a victor, not yet. Right now Ikari and SEELE are both concerned more with the Angels than their own petty feuds."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that."

Hyuga chuckled humorlessly and shook his head. "Neither would I. But we have to either play the part we expect, or its exact opposite. And right now, we pawns don't have a full view of the board. So I'd say the only way to survive is to trust our collective gut."

"Mmm, well, I'd say that if we whisper like this much longer we're going to start attracting attention."

"What little there is."

"You know the drill."

"Yeah, it never happened." Hyuga turned, an ever-so-slightly impudent grin on his face. "I don't even know who Katsuragi Misato is."

"Right."

She sighed, and the two went their separate ways.

****

Asuka looked forlornly out the window of the apartment. Since it was Sunday no one was doing anything particular; Shinji was obliging Kensuke on a trip to look at new model fightercraft and Misato was out wandering somewhere.

_Probably hitting all the bars in town one by one,_ Asuka thought disgustedly. _As if she didn't have enough alcohol in the fridge._

Asuka had not felt any inclination to step out and join the world—or, more precisely, she _wanted_ to but could not bring herself to exit the apartment. Instead she had meandered back and forth between the rooms all day, keeping PenPen company—or perhaps it was the other way around, she couldn't really tell.

In the distance she heard something, and she thought it was tolling bells. _Loud alarum bells_, she thought they were, but she could not consider where they might be coming from.

As quickly as they began the bells had ceased, replaced instead by silence, save for the occasional car roaring by beneath her.

_Why?_ she asked herself, peering out the window and yet seeing nothing. _What did it do to me…? Why couldn't I fight it…? It awakened something…memories. Memories I didn't want._

"It made you remember _me_," a voice from behind her sneered.

Asuka turned sharply and saw her young self, staring her down with a vicious look in her eyes.

"You shouldn't be here," Asuka said, strangely unperturbed by the girl's presence.

"I'm tired of being oppressed by you."

"What do you mean!" The panic grew in her voice and her eyes.

"You don't even _remember_ me unless I come to you!" the girl said. "You hated your Angel because you _had_ to remember me!"

"You shouldn't be here!" Asuka said. "I'm not asleep, I'm not in a coma! Go away!"

"You're not crying. Cry for me," the girl said, watching Asuka, a calculating look flashing through her eyes. "Cry with me, Asuka…_Die with me, Asuka_."

"No! I already said I wouldn't! I won't fight you, too! Go away!"

"_Nein_."

The young Asuka stepped forward several paces, and Asuka herself resisted the urge to back away.

"Do you hear it?" she asked herself. "The tolling of the bells. Iron bells!"

"Solemn thought…" Asuka whispered.

"And ringing the bells…neither beast nor human…"

Asuka nodded, barely comprehending.

"Go away…"

"Cry with me, Asuka."

"I can't! I won't!"

Against her own will, tears began to pool at the edge of her eyes, finally spilling over and down her cheeks.

"I'm strong! I'm not worthless! _I have meaning!_"

The little girl vanished immediately, as though Asuka's words were the key to her release. She watched the spot where the child had been, not moving.

Asuka heard a distant ringing. _Silver bells_, she thought.


	6. The Hearts of Men

__

  
VI. The Hearts of Men

Ikari Gendo sat at a table in the middle of a circle of pillars, as though Stone Henge had uprooted itself and resettled at Tokyo-3. Each pillar was a glowing black obelisk, emblazoned with the word SEELE, a number, and the phrase "sound only".

"You have failed us, _Commander_ Ikari," the first pillar said reprovingly.

"How can I have failed you when I have defeated the Angels?" Gendo replied evenly. "That _is_ my job description, if I recall correctly." A sardonic smirk twisted his face.  
  
"We do not know what you are talking about," the pillar replied, deliberately ignoring the jab. "What we _do_ know is that you lost the Lance of Longinus, one of your pilots was incapacitated, and remedying either situation is beyond even our control."

"You don't like the sensation of not being in control?" Gendo said baitingly.

"You would do well to remember your place, Ikari-_kun_." Gendo did not so much as flinch at the insult. "You are not as irreplaceable as you think you are," the pillar continued, partly in an attempt to intimidate Gendo and partly to reassure himself and his comrades of their mastery of their puppet.

The phone on the desk next to Gendo rang insistently.

"Please excuse me," Gendo said, a note of sarcasm in his voice.

He picked up the phone and listened intently, and suddenly grimaced.

"Sub-commander Fuyutsuki says that there is an Angel en route to Tokyo-3," Gendo said, his expression restoring itself. "I am afraid I must forgo the…pleasure of your company, for the moment."

He could nearly hear one of the men behind the pillars scoff.

"Be wary that you do not incur further failure on _this_ mission, Ikari Gendo. Our eyes are ever-vigilant, and they are focused on you."

"Of course," Gendo said, and smirked again as the pillars faded from view.

****

When Gendo arrived the command center was already on full alert. Information scrolled past on giant viewscreens faster than the eye could follow; techs and officials issued orders and responses completely oblivious to them.

Gendo climbed the stairs to his dais, only a few people seeming to have noticed his entry amidst the confusion. Fuyutsuki was waiting for him on the platform, and nodded to him as Gendo sat down.

"What is the status of the Angel?" he asked the deputy-commander.

"It seems fairly quiet…just floating in the air at Owakidani."

"Have we done anything about it?"

"Just looked at it, Commander."

Gendo nodded and grunted acknowledgment.

"Major Katsuragi," he said, causing Misato to jump. "Just what do you intend to do about this?"

Instead of answering directly, Misato began barking out orders.

"Sortie Unit 00 through route 32," she commanded. The "Yes m'am" was lost as she rapped out orders nonstop.

"Rei, keep your distance until I give you an order or the Angel makes a hostile movement."

"Yes m'am." Rei's voice over the comm line was emotionless.

"Unit 02 will remain in—"

"Belay that," Commander Ikari said calmly. "Unit 02 will also be sortied. It is at least useful as a decoy, if nothing else."

Asuka, ready in her Eva, tried to muster a firm "Yes m'am," failing as her voice nearly cracked.

__

As a decoy…

"No," Asuka whispered.

__

Nothing else.

"I'm not a decoy…"

__

As a decoy…nothing else…

"No!"

The Eva hit the top of the launch shaft with a violent _thud_. Asuka looked up, watching the city before her.

"Move," she whispered to the robot. "Move!"

The beast stood silent, ignoring its puppeteer.

"Move!" Asuka shouted. Over the communicator, linked to the command center, she could hear the techs' confusion.

"It's not working!" Maya shouted out. "Synch rate is under ten!"

"It won't go," Asuka whispered, her head in her hands, sobbing. "It just won't go…"

"Synch rate is _zero_!" Maya cried.

"Retrieve Unit 02!" Misato shouted. Asuka could feel the robot moving beneath her, but did not participate; only drew herself within, as deep as she could.

The girl opened the plug hatch by sheer force of will, escaping the giant creature she no longer could control. She began running through the halls of NERV, not bothering to figure out where they would lead.

Before she could think, Asuka was outside, dashing through the streets of Tokyo-3, not wondering if people would stare at her plug suit, or the sobbing girl wearing it. She could feel more acutely than usual the gravel and detritus of the asphalt on her feet; small pebbles dug in here and there but her mind was not thinking of these things, only of running.

The streets slowly became darker, and fewer people appeared, and then no people anymore, only the odd stray animal and Asuka's cries echoing off the sides of condemned, deserted buildings.

"It won't go," she said, over and over, until it became a mantra, ringing in her ears. "It won't go, it just won't go, I can't make it move…"

Somewhere far, far away there was an explosion, a massive blast that sent shock waves across all of Tokyo-3, bringing Asuka tumbling to the ground. She could not catch herself on her hands and scuffed her knees even through her plug suit.

She sat back, dazed. Her mind had stopped working; it was devoid of thoughts. The girl's façade crumbled and she drew her knees to her chest, crying into her plug suit.

"Broken," she muttered, "it's broken, mommy, it doesn't work anymore…"

****

The NERV Command Center was in turmoil. Rei had self-destructed Unit 00, destroying the Angel as well. Unit 01 had been undamaged by the blast, save for a few scorch marks on its armor plating that had not been there before.

But now there was the ugly task of cleaning up, both the site of the battle and public opinion of NERV. _The PR guys are gonna have a nightmare on their hands,_ Misato thought ruefully, glad she only had to supervise the military side of things. Owakidani now had a large new lake on it. A scenic view, yes, but one once inhabited by a very valuable forest.

__

At least there weren't any residences along there, Misato thought, not wanting to think about how the people of Tokyo-3 would have received the news of the mass destruction of their homes and families.

Misato's thoughts turned to Rei, dead in the blast. _Ritsuko and the others went out, but they're just looking for plug parts and Eva bits, not a living girl,_ she thought.

A man in a dark suit and sunglasses arrived at the door, and Misato hurried to meet him.

"Kiyomasa Gatsuki," the man said, "Section Two." He held up an ID badge. "We hear one of the pilots was lost in the battle."

__

Two, if you want to put it that way, Misato thought angrily, but tried to keep the emotion from her face and voice. "Yes. One Sohryu Asuka Langley, pilot of Evangelion Unit 02."

"It's our job to track her down. I'll be taking a small team of men with me. Don't worry, we'll find her."

His voice was like a policeman comforting a distraught parent, but Misato could see in his stance what he implied—_if you hadn't lost her in the first place, I wouldn't be looking for her._

"Good. Report to me as soon as you find her." She looked him in the face so she thought she was locking eyes with him, though she couldn't be sure. "Let me make it very clear that lethal force is _not_ permissible on this mission, Mister Kiyomasa," she said.

"Of course," he replied. "Understood."

Something in his tone, in the way he watched her, infuriated Misato. He was arrogant, showy. _You get 'em in the special agencies and they think they own the damn world,_ she thought, but instead said curtly, "Dismissed."

He nodded once in that cocky way and walked out.

Commander Ikari appeared behind Misato. "It seems you have lost a pilot for us."

"And you've lost an Evangelion," Misato said sharply, turning around.

She knew before the words had left her very mouth that she had made a terrible mistake. The Commander's eyes turned, for a brief instant, to solid ice, freezing on Misato. Then they became normal again, almost sweet, and she knew instinctively she was in his debt.

"I am sure Section Two will soon return our lost little girl." There seemed to be a nasty smirk lurking behind his careful expression. "As for the Evangelion…" he let loose a dramatic sigh. "I am afraid the ineptitudes of the inferiors eventually fall on the shoulders of the superiors. That is the way of our society. Although be it known that mistakes are rarely made without repercussions to _all_ parties involved."

He walked smoothly out of the room, leaving Misato fuming. She knew full well she shouldn't have said what she did, but it was not precisely her fault that Unit 00 had been lost. She had ordered, directly _ordered_, Rei to evacuate the Evangelion, and she had refused, choosing instead to destroy herself and the Angel with her.

Misato sighed again and looked around at the maelstrom of people. "I may not have to reconcile this to the local populous," she said to herself, "but there's going to be a _hell_ of a lot of paperwork to be done."

****

Rei sat in the hospital waiting room, staring into space. Her first true memory was of a dank room, and a shadowed form, a woman. Doctor Akagi, she had called herself. Akagi Ritsuko, that was her name. Rei knew that. Ritsuko—she had asked to be on familiar terms with the girl, and Rei had not refused—had swathed her arm and head in bandages, roll after roll of them.

"You were hurt very badly, Rei," Ritsuko was saying, almost chidingly. "You're lucky to be alive."

Rei had not understood. From everything she could tell she was in perfect health. Perhaps a little disoriented, but not hurt. And now she was here, in a hospital, to complete the ruse.

__

I know who I am, she thought, _but not who I _am_._

A young boy—perhaps fourteen, or fifteen—appeared at the door to the waiting room. He started when he saw her.

"A-Ayanami," he said haltingly, approaching her. "What a surprise to see you here…"

At no word from her he continued.

"I wanted to…I mean, ah…I…thanks."

"Thanks?" she echoed.

"I mean, ah, th-thank you…for saving me back there, you know?"

"I…saved you?"

"Yeah, you…you did," he said, apparently mystified by her memory loss. _This must be Ikari Shinji, the Third Child_, Rei thought.

His confidence seemed to flag very quickly in the face of her continued lack of comprehension.

"Do…Don't you remember?" he asked. "The sixteenth Angel? Unit 00? Nothing?"

"I do not remember," Rei confirmed, her voice flat. "I think it is because I am Three."

She got up and walked from the room, but not so quickly she did not hear Shinji whisper to himself as she left.

"Three…"

****

"We do not wish to cause you more pain or humiliation than is necessary," the first pillar said to Ritsuko, who was now surrounded by the black monoliths.

"That's why I'm naked, right?" she said dryly. "Or do even giant slabs of rock have sex fantasies? 'Sound only' only applies to the people looking _at_ the pillars, not _from_ them, isn't that it?" She smiled slightly, knowing she had hit the mark.

"Come to think of it, these obelisks look a lot like…"

"You may stop there," the first pillar said, obviously ruffled by her remarks. She fought to keep from grinning. She had always taught herself not to play her hand too early.

"You are here purely on professional business," another monolith said, coming to its companion's aid. "Commander Ikari refused to let us interview the pilot of Unit 00, but he sent you as a surrogate."

"How kind of him." She looked at the first pillar right where she would have been staring it in the face, had it been an actual person. She wasn't sure what this equated to for the man behind it.

"Then let's get this interview started, shall we?" Ritsuko said jovially.

"_We_ will decide how the interrogation will proceed," the first pillar said. "The interrogation will begin now."

Ritsuko smirked inwardly, having determined roughly how to control these men. _And Gendo always seemed so afraid of them,_ she thought.

"Tell us what occurred during the battle with the sixteenth Angel," the third pillar instructed.

Ritsuko continued to watch the first pillar. "We sortied Unit 00 through route 32 to Owakidani, where the Angel was waiting in the air. We attempted to sortie Unit 02 as well, but its pilot's synch rate hit zero before it reached the top of the launch shaft. We retrieved the Evangelion but the pilot is now somewhere in Tokyo-3 and Section Two is still looking for her."

"That is unimportant." The third pillar again. "Tell us about the battle."

"When Unit 00 approached, the Angel unraveled and attacked. We still have not determined what substance the Angel was composed of and I do not believe we ever will. Unit 01 was sortied on Commander Ikari's orders to back up Unit 00. Ayanami Rei, pilot of Unit 00, was ordered to retreat by NERV Major Katsuragi Misato, but refused. Instead, she initiated Unit 00's self-destruct cycle, eliminating both Unit 00 and the sixteenth Angel."

"Conventional weaponry _was_ used before an entire Evangelion was sacrificed, correct?"

"Rei…I mean, the pilot of Unit 00, attempted to fire a rail gun into the Angel from close range but none of the shots had any effect. All reports show that the plug was not ejected during the self-destruct sequence and the pilot should have been destroyed with the Eva. By some miracle she survived and is now recuperating in preparation to return to active duty."

"When will this be?"

"We're not sure. But my estimate would be inside of six weeks. Less than that, if we're careful."

"And what of Unit 01?"

"It sustained a few burn marks, but nothing a high-pressure bath in the cage couldn't clean off. Now it's good as new."

"But Unit 00 could not be salvaged?"

"No, it could not." She stared down the first pillar.

"Hrm," one of the pillars said angrily. "This Ikari is far too much trouble. First he loses the Lance and now Unit 00 itself…we needed that robot!" If Ritsuko had not known better, she would have said the man was throwing a tantrum.

"Do not worry yourself," the first pillar said evenly. "We will deal with Ikari, and the…_effects_ of his actions, in due course."

"Give him one for me," Ritsuko said helpfully.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Thank you, Doctor Akagi, you are dismissed."

"That means I can put clothes on?"

"If you like."

She swore she could hear an impudent smirk as the pillars faded out.

****

"Shinji, I…I'm sorry about what happened."

Misato sat down next to Shinji, who lay stretched out on his bed, staring vacantly at the ceiling.

"I wanted to save Rei, too, and Asuka."

"But she's alive."

Misato started slightly. She had heard rumors that the First Child had not been killed, but she knew they could not be true.

"I talked to her. But she didn't know what she'd done."

"Well, it's not that surprising," Misato said, trying to regain her composure. "Probably some kind of memory repression or something."

"It doesn't matter, does it."

"What? Of course it does," Misato said, slightly more forcefully than she'd intended to. "Your memories define who you are."

"No they don't," Shinji said quietly. "Only you define who you are. In the present. Didn't you change, Misato-san? After you met Mr. Kaji, you changed. Then when you two broke up, you changed again." Misato winced at the memories, but kept her peace. "Isn't it true?"

She had to force the word to her mouth. "Yes."

She expected Shinji to say more but he did not, and she shifted uncomfortably in the silence.

"Section Two still hasn't found Asuka," she said to fill the void. Shinji nodded slightly, but said nothing.

"Do you want them to find her…?"

She had not asked it to be mean or callous, but merely because she wondered what this Third Child was thinking, when one of his comrades had mysteriously risen from the dead and another was lost in the streets of Tokyo-3.

Shinji seemed discomfited by the question, but did not make reply. Misato found she could feel only pity for this pilot, the Child who was not a child, who bore silently a responsibility not one adult in ten thousand would willingly take on.

"Shinji…" she said, and placed her hand softly over his.

"No, don't," he said, rolling his side and pulling his hand away. "Please…"

Reluctantly Misato's hand retreated back to her, and she watched the boy for a moment longer before standing and walking out the door.

__

I see, she thought as she stood outside Shinji's room. _He is afraid of affection. He does not want to be close to someone…but he does._

You were that way once, weren't you? a voice asked her. She started and looked around as though someone were speaking from elsewhere in the apartment. But there was no one there.

"I guess I was…" she admitted to the air, loathing the answer. She began to walk merely to take her mind off the subject, but saw the answering machine sitting in her room.

__

I really was, she said to herself. _But I thought that with Kaji, I was whole again. Wasn't I?_

She sighed and went into the room, still riddled with empty beer cans she had not bothered to clear away. She shivered involuntarily as she saw the flashing red _1_ on the machine.

"Then."

She reached down and pressed REWIND and then PLAY, fearing the whirring and buzzing as the tape cycled backwards. She looked at a small capsule which lay in twain on the table next to the answering machine, one of the only clear spaces present on the surface.

Kaji's voice came from the answering machine, distorted by the connection quality.

"This is a part of the truth you wanted to know."

She watched the capsule intently, trying to riddle out his words.

"I've sent you the same thing thirty-six different ways, but I doubt most of them will reach you. Maybe only the capsule."

She stared at the capsule, and then the small bits of metal inside it. Tiny bugs, each a way of hacking past NERV's myriad security procedures.

"This is my everything," his voice continued. "Do with it as you will."

There was a brief pause, as though he wanted to make sure he had her full attention.

"The passcode is our first memory."

  
Misato considered carefully, everything she knew.

"Bye."


	7. And When the Night is Cloudy

__

VII. And When the Night is Cloudy

Those at NERV now kept themselves on a secondary alert status at almost all times. Sixteen of what was predicted to be seventeen Angels had been destroyed, and now they all were waiting for the last one to arrive.

Akagi Ritsuko walked through the corridors of the base, trying to look official and not grave.

"Have you seen the Third Child?" she asked a passing tech.

"I think he's waiting at Bay Eight," the tech said. "Poor kids don't have anything to do."

"Probably the better for it," Ritsuko said under her breath, but thanked the tech nonetheless and turned toward Bay Eight.

Shinji was indeed there, sitting at the edge of the vast, open room. No thing and no one else was present. Ritsuko approached, but Shinji did not seem to notice despite the echoing _clack_ of her shoes on the floor.

"Shinji?" she asked quietly, as though afraid to hear her voice echo in the room.

"Yes," he replied.

"Why here?"

"Section Two said that when the patrol out looking for Asu…the Second Child arrived, it would come here."

"I see." Shinji nodded wordlessly. "Shinji, there's something else you should see."

"Is it more important?"

"Possibly. Regardless, you should know about it." She took his shoulder and tugged, urging him to his feet. Resignedly he stood and followed her out of the room.

"What are we seeing?" he asked distantly.

"Nothing I can say with this many personnel around. You'll understand. For now, just follow me."

"Yes m'am."

For some reason the formality of his address irked her, but she said nothing, merely kept walking.

They arrived at an elevator marked "Authorized Personnel Only" in large red letters. Ritsuko pressed several buttons on the keypad and the door slid open smoothly. She stepped on and motioned for Shinji to do the same.

Ritsuko reached out and pressed a button on the elevator's keypad, and the machine started with a jolt. Shinji could hear machinery clacking and straining as they descended level after level of the NERV base, reaching ever deeper into the Geofront's core.

After many minutes the elevator came to a halt and the doors opened, revealing a blackened corridor ahead. "This is the place," Ritsuko said. They walked down the corridor, arriving at a door just large enough for one man to pass through. Above it was a bright sign reading 'Central Dogma', with a variety of 'Do Not Enter' warnings.

Ritsuko walked to the door, leaving Shinji in the shadows. Her fingers flew over the keypad, but nothing happened. She tried again. Still no response.

Suddenly Ritsuko heard a _click_ and felt the muzzle of a gun pressing into her back.

"It won't work without my code," Misato said. Ritsuko calmly raised her hands.

"This is Kaji's doing, I presume?"

Misato nodded almost imperceptibly.

"Knock yourself out," Ritsuko said, stepping aside. "But he gets to come with us."

Misato jumped slightly as Shinji emerged from the darkness. Then she steeled her reserve again. "Alright."

Misato stepped forward and tapped on the keypad. The door slid open smoothly, revealing a dim room beyond. One by one, the three of them stepped through.

Shinji was amazed by what he saw: a dilapidated room that recalled nothing so strongly as Ayanami's apartment.

"It looks just like Rei's room," he said quietly.

"It should," Ritsuko replied. "It _is_ Rei's room." Shinji gasped under his breath. Ritsuko pointed to an huge spinal column and quasi-rectangular head. "This is the Land of Misfit Evas," she said. "That's the very first prototype, from ten years ago."

Shinji gawked at the sheer size of the Evangelion parts around them. The discarded bones of dead gargants, all. Shinji gazed about as though he expected Anataeus to lower them into the next room, but only a large curtain seemed to separate one section from another.

The trio emerged into the new area, and Shinji's breath left him. The room was surrounded by a tank built into the wall, filled with the sickly-orange liquid LCL. But more than that, it was filled with people. With children. With _Rei_. Tens, perhaps even hundreds, of Rei floated about the tank, wearing empty smiles and pushing at the glass of the tank.

"Welcome to the Dummy System," Ritsuko announced dryly.

"What?" Misato gasped.

"Yes. Any one of these creatures could become part of a dummy plug."

"What?" Misato said again. "We're killing children to make dummy plugs?"

"No," Ritsuko said emotionless. "They're not children. They're not even people. They're _things_ with human form. All of them have only one soul to share among them." Ritsuko seemed to crumple as she spoke.

"When one is destroyed, so many others wait to take its place. But just one can exist at a time. They're only fakes…and now…and now…" she began to fight tears. "And now…Commander Ikari likes _her_ better. I've lost him to _her_! She's a doll! A fake! A _thing!_"

She reached for a pedestal in the middle of the room, riddled with controls.

"It doesn't matter…"

She pressed several buttons, and suddenly the Reis began to drift apart. Arms separated from torsos, heads floated away from necks. The smiles never left their faces as the human detritus settled to the ground.

"Now it doesn't matter," Ritsuko said, sobbing. She collapsed to the ground, entirely bereft of strength. Misato made an empty motion with the gun and then holstered it again.

"No," Ritsuko said, next to tears. "Kill me. I'd rather die!"

Misato only watched the other woman, her eyes filled with sorrow.

"So this is Project E," she whispered to herself. "Weapons built on deception, children that don't exist, and a phone that never rings."

****

Asuka was crouched in a dingy corner of Tokyo-3, surrounded by darkness. She had pulled her knees up to her chest and was sobbing into them, no longer willing to fight the tears.

She was whispering frantically to herself when Kiyomasa Gatsuki found her. It was a language he did not understand and did not care to make out.

"_Ich bin nicht wertlos…ich bin vollkommen…nicht wertlos…ich bin nicht wertlos…ich bin ein starkes kleins Mädchen…_"

He stopped several meters away from her, watching her. Her entire body was shaking with sobs, though her cries barely went past her own ears.

"Sohryu Asuka Langley," he said, stepping forward until he was only a few paces behind her. "I am Kiyomasa Gatsuki, Section Two. We'd like you to come with us."

"Fuck off," she muttered into her knees, "just leave me alone."

He moved to put his hand on her shoulder. "We'd like you to—"

"I said _fuck off!_" she shouted, wheeling on the agent and shoving his hand away. She leapt at him as though to drive him backwards but instead he pushed a finger deep into a pressure point on her shoulder. Asuka was enveloped in a flash of blinding pain and dropped to the ground, curling back into a fetal position as though a spring had been wound back up.

"We have the girl," Kiyomasa said into a walkie-talkie. Three more men emerged from the shadows, one of them with his pistol drawn, as though afraid the child might attack once more.

The four of them lifted Asuka between them. She neither resisted nor assisted, and they nearly stumbled trying to support her dead weight. Not far away a car was waiting for them, black and nearly invisible against the darkened Tokyo streets.

There was no real barrier between the front and back seats, and the men opened the back doors and shoved Asuka inside. Kiyomasa climbed into the passenger side door and another man took the driver's side. Behind his seat he could see Asuka, and hear her, still muttering occasionally.

"_Ein…Ein starkes kleins Mädchen…_" she said softly.

Kiyomasa laughed gruffly. "Speak Japanese, bitch," he said, giving her a shove on the shoulder.

Her response was so soft he could barely hear it.

"Go to hell."

Kiyomasa turned forward again, smiling outright. He had heard much of the fiery Second Child.

She had lived up to her reputation…yes indeed.

****

"It seems that Section Two has successfully retrieved the Second Child," Fuyutsuki said, not looking down at Gendo.

"Yes," he said.

"I've heard she put up quite a fight."

"I have spoken to Mister Kiyomasa myself," Gendo said, silently wishing Fuyutsuki would stop telling him things he already knew. "She was not as vicious as you seem to think. In fact, as of this moment she is in a bed in our hospital wing, staring into space, a weak little girl."

"You seem to know quite a bit about the status of the pilots for a man who never journeys beyond his office," Fuyutsuki said dryly.

"I also go to the command center," Gendo said inflectionlessly. Fuyutsuki thought once again about his desire to be able to tell when the Commander was being humorous.

"Be that as it may," the Deputy Commander said, trying to hurry the conversation along, "we are now less one pilot. And one Angel still remains."

"The first concern is no concern at all. The Fifth Child should be arriving tomorrow. The second concern is only incrementally more a concern than the first. We have defeated sixteen Angels already, Fuyutsuki-sensei. One more should be no trouble."

"They do say not to let victory go to your head."

Gendo smirked slightly, still not looking at his sub-commander. "They also say…the able hawk hides its claws."

****

Asuka slowly rose to full consciousness. She found herself in a stiff bed, staring at a ceiling that seemed overbright. Towering over her were countless machines, beeping and buzzing. Intravenous fluids dripped into her arms at several locations, and she could still feel a vague ache where the Section Two agent had struck her.

"Awake?"

The voice startled her terribly.

"Dammit," she said, "here I'm getting over being manhandled and you come and give me a heart attack!"

She had not even considered whose the voice was, merely followed her knee-jerk reaction to the statement. Now she registered the voice's owner—Ayanami Rei was seated by her bed, watching her.

"Sitting _shiva_, I'll bet," Asuka said venomously. "I'm not dead yet. Sorry."

"I do not know what you are talking about," Rei said quietly.

"Yeah, right." Asuka noticed the many bandages tied across the girl's head and arms.

"Wonder you're not in here, too," she said. "Did Wonder Girl save the day again?"

"Yes," Rei said emotionlessly, slowly taking a dislike to this other child. She did not know that she had, in fact, saved the day, but it seemed to irk the girl before her.

"You are the Second Child, are you not?"

Asuka's face twisted. "Like you didn't know that. You're just rubbing it in, aren't you? You _know_ they're not going to let me pilot an Eva after that!"

"Is that what you desire? To be a pilot?"

"Yes! And so do you!" The girl seemed surprisingly charged with energy for a convalescent. "But now I'm no pilot." The emotion seemed to drain from her.

"I could pull this plug," Rei suggested, indicating a socket on the wall.

"That would be easier, wouldn't it," Asuka reflected. "Maybe you should."

"Would I get in trouble?" Rei asked. Asuka wondered silently where the girl had obtained this sudden naiveté.

"I guess, if they figured out it was you. But if you left right after you did it, maybe they wouldn't know. I don't think they really monitor these rooms twenty-four seven."

"What about the Third Child?" Rei asked quietly. "Wouldn't he miss you?"

Asuka's face clouded again. "Stupid Shinji would never miss anyone. He could drop dead and he wouldn't even miss himself!" The thought seemed to trouble Rei.

"Do you really believe that?"

Asuka watched Rei for a long moment, then sighed deeply and sank into her bed.

"No."

"I shouldn't pull the plug, then?"

Asuka thought again, for a long, long time.

"No…I guess not. Not yet."

"I will wait, then," Rei said. She got up from the chair, the sound of metal scraping on metal ringing throughout the room.

Asuka watched the girl's back as she left the room, her carefully-pressed school uniform fluttering slightly in the breeze of the door. Asuka leaned back into her bed and gazed at her hands and legs.

"_Ich bin ein starkes kleins Mädchen…_"

****

"And this is the Fifth Child?" Gendo asked the man who was accompanying him.

"Yes, sir." The man was large and beefy, but the boy who accompanied him was almost frail, as though he might fade away at any moment. A mop of grey hair fell down around his ears and slightly into his eyes—red eyes, an albino—and he wore a half-smile that Gendo found annoyingly disconcerting.

"Direct from SEELE," Fuyutsuki muttered to himself. Gendo seemed to nod despite the fact that the comment hadn't been directed at him, but the deputy commander said nothing more.

"Very good then," Gendo said. "I will take him from here."

"Yes, sir." The man turned and departed, leaving the boy to Gendo. They stared at each other for some time, as two cats sizing up their respective opponents.

"Your name," Gendo said at length.

"Nagisa Kaworu," the boy said confidently.

Gendo grunted. "Very well, then. You will be assigned to Evangelion Unit 02. I imagine the transfer personnel have already granted you a living space within Tokyo-3?"

"Yes."

"Then." Gendo turned and left without another word, Fuyutsuki only a second behind him. They returned to the Commander's office, where he re-assumed his standard position behind his desk.

"I don't know about this boy," Fuyutsuki said once they were situated. "He seems awfully…strange."

"Name an Evangelion pilot who isn't," Gendo said dryly. "Yes, he is strange. He came to us directly from SEELE by their personal selection, which puts him under suspicion by default. The chances are good that Nagisa Kaworu will cause us a great deal of trouble."

Fuyutsuki had ceased to be surprised by the Commander's sudden outpourings of knowledge he should not have had, but his interest was still piqued by the idea that Gendo had allowed entry into the base for someone he knew was going to be a problem.

"And what of the rightful pilot of Unit 02?" Fuyutsuki asked.

"What of her?" Gendo replied evenly. "The original pilot of Evangelion Unit 02 is officially incapacitated and unable to pilot an Evangelion for the time being. At such time as she recuperates, we will thank God that we have a back-up pilot, a resource which happens to be in _very_ short supply."

Fuyutsuki had to force back a laugh. Instead he only nodded, without a word.

****

Shinji watched Asuka, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully. It had been almost a week since they brought her back, and she had not yet been allowed to move from the hospital bed. Thus far he had not been able to speak with her when she was awake, but he imagined that having her energy dammed up this way had made her even more furious than usual.

"Asuka?" he whispered urgently. "Asuka, are you awake? Wake up…!"

He thought he saw the muscles at the top of her eyelids flutter, but she did not stir.

Shinji reached out and set his hand on her arm, her flesh seeming very thin and light beneath his fingers. He could feel the bones running through her arm, felt as though if he were to take the limb in his fist and squeeze that it would simply snap in two.

"Asuka…" he said, looking at her face. Had her eyes been open, he would have been gazing deeply into them, but instead he only stared at her gaunt features as though committing them to memory. "Asuka, it's frightening here…I remember being here…" He shuddered involuntarily.

"It smells like blood here…everything smells like blood here. You shouldn't have to be here, Asuka…it's not your fault…you're a good Eva pilot…you're better than I am…you have to wake up, Asuka, it's time to wake up…" The babble began to run together into a nearly incomprehensible stream of syllables, his voice cracking as he talked on.

"Asuka, I need you…wake up, Asuka…" Her form was still, her breathing even, her chest rising and falling at uninterrupted intervals.

"Please, Asuka, I need you…" His voice cut off and he fought tears.

__

Stupid Shinji, Asuka thought wistfully. _You think I'm asleep. But I can hear every word._


	8. When Four Hearts are Bound by Fate

__

VIII. When Four Hearts are Bound by Fate

After several weeks Asuka had finally graduated from being bedridden to trying, largely in vain, to regain her lost muscular strength.

When the Fifth Child found her, she was struggling up off the floor, cursing violently across several tongues, trying to support herself on atrophied legs. When she finally arrived at her feet, clinging to a metal bar to stand, she turned her attention to the boy at the door.

"What are _you_ looking at?" she demanded.

Kaworu took several steps into the physical therapy room. "So. Are you the fabled Second Child?"

"That's me," Asuka said, tossing her head back in what she hoped was a casual manner. "What about it?"

"I am Nagisa Kaworu," the boy said, "the Fifth Child. For the moment, I have assumed command of Unit 02."

"I've heard of you," Asuka said, her hackles rising. "Even down here in the medical wing we _do_ hear about some of the stuff up at Big Important Headquarters. I knew full well there was another Child taking control of my mech."

Kaworu smiled lightly. "Good. Then perhaps we can avoid any awkward introductions."

"'Asuka' will be fine," she informed him. "Just don't get too comfortable in Unit 02. I'll be back fighting Angels before _you_ even get your first synch scores back."

Kaworu resisted the urge to bait her, to tell her that several synch tests had already been occasioned, and he had vastly outperformed her in every possible way. Instead he said, "If you ever _do_ get your strength back, do you really think they're going to just dump you back in an Eva? You'll be a back-up pilot at best. A back-up to me, you see?"

His inflection never seemed to change, nor did the infuriating half-smile on his face.

"Is that so!?" Asuka fumed. "I'll have you know that NERV happens to need as many pilots as it can get!"

"Of course," Kaworu said. "I'm just saying that you'll be back-up. Even if more Evas are produced, they'll be assembly-line units with dummy plugs for brains."

"I'll be happy if I never have to lay eyes on those metal bastards," Asuka said, turning up her nose.

"Well, just work on getting better for now," Kaworu said, adopting a slightly patronizing tone. "I'll bet you'll be back in an Eva before you know it. I look forward to…working with you." He sniggered, deliberately loud enough for her to hear.

"Why you—!" She let go of the pole and began to shamble toward him, a look of pure hatred on her face. She had not gone a full two steps when her legs collapsed under her and she came crashing to the ground.

Kaworu smiled slightly, bent down and reached out his hand. "Help you up?"

Asuka snarled and slapped away the proffered hand. "_Arschloch._"

"My my," he said, clucking his tongue. "I believe I've just been insulted. And here I was being very chivalrous. Well then, I guess I'll just let you get up on your own."

He turned and walked toward the door. "Later," he said, waving a hand over his shoulder.

Asuka stared furiously at the door where Kaworu had been standing. She tried futilely to rise, before she surrendered to gravity and dissolved into tears.

****

Shinji was walking along one of the nameless corridors that populated the NERV headquarters. He saw Kaworu approaching from the other direction and turned to walk with him.

"Ah, Shinji-kun," Kaworu said, smiling.

"Kaworu-kun," Shinji said, reciprocating the expression. "Where did you go?"

"I was just to see Asuka," he said, no change evident in his face.

"Really? How is she doing?"

"Quite well, I'd say," Kaworu replied. "She's got a lot of fight in her."

Shinji laughed. "Yeah. That's true."

__

They must have really gotten along if they're already on a first-name basis, Shinji thought, recalling his own meeting with Kaworu.

"Now where are we going?" the Third Child asked.

"Nowhere particular," Kaworu replied, seeming to look into the air before him. "I thought perhaps a shower. I would like to feel clean again."

"Nothing here is clean," Shinji muttered. Kaworu gave him an odd look but said nothing.

The showers were empty, only the sound of hissing water to detract from the silence.

__

Yes, Kaworu thought to himself, remembering his encounter with Asuka. _She is quite a fighter. It is good that she is gone for now…she could cause quite a bit of trouble if I had to work past her to achieve my goals._ He paused. _But…it would be a shame to destroy her. She is…fun._

"Kaworu-kun?" Shinji said. Kaworu started, but then looked over at Shinji, the question not off his lips. "Thinking…?"

"Yes," Kaworu said simply. "I was thinking that it must take quite some strength to pilot an Evangelion. You have much strength, Ikari Shinji-kun."

"What?" he said, blushing slightly. "No, I don't, I…"

"You do," Kaworu said confidently. "You are Ikari Shinji, the Third Child, are you not? You have been selected to pilot an Evangelion, have you not?"

"Yes, but…but I only do it because everybody tells me to."

Kaworu smiled softly. "Listen to me, Ikari Shinji. You are more than a mere doll. The Evangelion will not allow itself to be piloted by just anyone. There is something in you that the Evangelion knows about. That is why it allows you to control it. Other circumstances are irrelevant."

Shinji stared at Kaworu for a moment, unsure what was being said.

Kaworu laughed, sensing his predicament. "You must know about _mumonseki_—the Gateless Gate. 'On the great way there is no gate, but a thousand paths to choose from. Find the gate and you may walk alone between Heaven and Earth.' You can choose your own path, Ikari Shinji-kun, and nothing can stop you from deciding which one you want at any time, and taking that path."

"I'm an Eva pilot."

"Then so be it," Kaworu replied. "For now, you pilot Evangelion. But when all the Angels have died, you will yet live, Ikari Shinji-kun. Do not forget that."

Shinji looked as though he were about to say something but stopped himself, and Kaworu turned off his shower, leaving to dry himself.

Shinji sighed and turned off his water as well, reaching around the door for a towel.

They both emerged from the changing rooms at the same time, in their pressed school uniforms.

"Then, I will be on my way," Kaworu said, stopping as he was about to pass Shinji. "But do not forget, Ikari Shinji-kun. Nagisa Kaworu loves you, and this makes you human."

"What about Nagisa Kaworu?" Shinji asked, not looking at the other boy. "Does it make him human, too?"

"Can he receive love?"

Shinji hesitated slightly. "Ikari Shinji loves Nagisa Kaworu. D-Don't forget that…Kaworu-kun."

Kaworu laughed lightly. "Then…I am human. Insofar as I have both loved, and been loved."

"Is that really what it means to be human?"

"Yes."

Kaworu walked out of the room without another word.

****

Misato sighed and lay back in her bed. Shinji was staying with the Fifth Child, and Asuka was still in the hospital. Misato had not been allowed to visit her at first, and even though the appropriate clearances had now been granted, she had been so busy as to prevent her from ever actually seeing Asuka.

She heard the soft tapping of tiny feet come slowly from one room to the next, finally entering her door. PenPen's little silhouette became very large, cast across the floor and onto the bed by the light behind the door.

"Hello PenPen," Misato said, smiling slightly. The bird waddled into the room and held its flippers up to her, squawking once or twice. Misato almost laughed and nodded, hefting PenPen onto the bed next to her. He immediately grabbed up what was probably more than his share of the covers, but Misato decided she didn't mind.

"Just a little companionship," she murmured. "That's all I ever wanted." The penguin said something halfway between a squeak and a yawn, then rolled over so his back was to her.

"But…" she sighed. "I guess maybe…I never really found it."

PenPen said nothing: he was asleep.

****

Gendo sat at his desk, Fuyutsuki in his usual place behind him, holding a page of readouts and numbers.

"This boy's synch rates are incredible," Fuyutsuki said, pointing to a column labeled '5' on the paper. "It's almost as though he can set the synch rate to whatever he pleases."

"Yes," Gendo nodded, showing no emotion. "He was a very good choice for an Evangelion pilot. But I still have my doubts."

"Then I'm sure they are well-founded," Fuyutsuki replied. "But we can hardly call SEELE on such an excellent pilot. It would seem too suspicious. Perhaps…as though we knew something we were not supposed to."

"I don't know what you mean," Gendo said innocently. "I'm merely a prudent commander working on gut instinct."

Fuyutsuki nodded. "Of course."

"Kozo," Gendo said seriously, his demeanor visibly changing. "The Time of Trials is coming to an end. But you see, it is impossible that our trials will end upon the death of the seventeenth Angel. I do not claim to know all of what is coming. But I can guarantee you that we will not expect it, and we will have to adapt quickly to fight it."

Fuyutsuki shifted uncomfortably. "For now, we should concentrate on the matter at hand."

"The Angels," Gendo said. "Yes, of course. One problem at a time."

****

Asuka limped through the hospital ward, supported by crutches. She was faintly mystified by the sensation that her legs simply would not work, but for the moment she was forced to shift from one to the other with each step, each time summoning all the energy she had to continue standing.

The hospital wing of the NERV base was reasonably populous, but Asuka managed to fend off whomever she saw with a killing glare.

With terrible suddenness the hallway rang with the screeching of alarms.

"Level One Alert in progress," a calm voice reported over the loudspeaker. "An Angel has entered the base."

"What!?" Asuka shouted.

Without warning the entire building began to quake violently, sending Asuka tumbling to the ground with a loud curse. Personnel appeared from all their hiding places, swarming around Asuka. She heard soft, even footsteps pass her head, then stop.

"Here."

A pale hand reached down to help her up. Grudgingly Asuka took hold of it, and Rei lifted her to her feet. Asuka grabbed up her crutches, struggling to balance as the building continued to rumble.

Asuka was about to say something to Rei, when she looked up and realized the other girl was gone.

The voice on the speaker never ceased, constantly bringing new announcements, or repeating old ones.

"The seventeenth Angel has arrived…all personnel please assume battle stations…"

Asuka felt herself distancing from the situation, until suddenly the language blaring from the loudspeakers meant nothing to her. She listened to it, not a word registering with her brain.

"_Juu-shichi no shito ga tsuita. Minna-sama wa…_"

Suddenly something shook her out of her reverie.

"The Angel has entered Terminal Dogma. Repeat: The Angel has entered Terminal Dogma."

"It's the end of the world," Asuka moaned, and the general mood seemed to agree with her.

As suddenly as it had come, the rumbling stopped, and utter silence reigned over the base. Asuka was hard-pressed to hear even a breath from the people around her.

The silence seemed to go on forever, extending into infinity. Asuka's own shallow breaths grated on her ears, as though the Angel would hear her alone and come to kill her.

The voice came over the speaker again, splitting the soundlessness. "Attention NERV personnel: The Seventeenth Angel has been defeated. Repeat, the Angel has been eliminated. This concludes the Level One Alert. All personnel please return to your normal duties."

Activity slowly filtered back into the NERV base, but Asuka stood where she was, stunned.


	9. Please, Think of Those Who Live On

__

IX. Please, Think of Those Who Live On

Asuka had been transferred to a hospital room with a window, one less equipped for handling emergency situations. Asuka considered it a good sign; it meant she would soon be away from the hospital's sterile, over-bright halls for good.

The window afforded her a view of the gigantic crater given birth by Unit 00 in its defeat of the sixteenth Angel. She spent much time staring at it, contemplating both the crater and the mysterious girl who had created it.

The room was very quiet; Asuka was only occasionally disturbed by the tapping of feet on the metal floor outside. A nurse only came by regularly once or twice a day, and otherwise if she called. In the end Asuka found it both a blessing and a curse—it meant fewer people she needed to deal with, but also less chance to _do_ anything, left instead to her thoughts.

Asuka was gazing out the window, half at the crater and half at her own reflection in the glass, when she heard soft footfalls approaching her room. _Too early for the nurse,_ she thought lazily, not bothering to consider who it might be instead.

Ikari Shinji walked into the room, silent and withdrawn. Asuka watched him in the glass, neither of them saying a word.

The Third Child arrived at her bedside and sat down in a folding metal chair, apparently unperturbed by the fact that she was now awake.

"Kaworu is dead," Shinji said quietly, miserably. Asuka felt a tremor run through her body, somehow shaken that the mild-mannered, smiling boy Nagisa had been such a terrible creature in disguise.

"I killed him."

Again Asuka shuddered involuntarily. She and her comrades were now accustomed to killing Angels, to destroying other creatures. And yet this creature had looked liked them. She looked at Shinji's reflection in the giant window, played over the man-made lake like a slide show.

"He's dead because of me…" Shinji began to cry softly, his shoulders jerking with his sobs. Finally Asuka turned and looked at him directly, pity and sorrow in her eyes.

"He's dead because of your duty," Asuka said gently, trying clumsily to comfort the boy. "You had to do what you did."

"No I didn't!" Shinji nearly shouted, startling Asuka with the force of his reply. "I could have let him go! Could have let him live!"

"For what!?" she demanded, almost as angrily. "The destruction of all humanity!? He would have done it without a second thought!"

Spontaneously, the emotion left them both.

"You can't worry about what you've already done," Asuka said, looking down at the bed. "You can't worry about winning or losing or succeeding or failing, if you've already won or lost or succeeded or failed. It just…doesn't help."

"But…But another human being is dead because of me," Shinji said, his voice nearly cracking.

"He wasn't human, he was an Angel."

"Don't say that! He loved me, and…and I loved him. So he was human. So _I_ was human."

"Shinji," Asuka said quietly, looking at him intently. "Come here."

Reluctantly, Shinji stood from his chair and walked the few feet to Asuka's bed, where he sat again, facing away from the girl.

With some effort, Asuka sat up, and shifted so she was nearly leaning on Shinji. She inclined her head so her mouth was next to his ear.

"You are strong," she whispered.

He started slightly at the words, or perhaps at the tickle of her breath on his skin. Slowly he turned until he was looking at her, his eyes large and faintly confused.

"That's why you defeated seventeen Angels. That's why Kaworu let himself die, because you had the will to go on living and he surrendered to that will. That's why you'll keep living, even now that all the Angels are gone."

He looked at her, slowly comprehending her words.

"Will you…will you live, with me?"

She smiled, one of the first genuine smiles she could remember giving, to him or to anyone.

"Yes. Always." She leaned forward slightly, embracing Shinji as best she knew how. She felt him shake with sobs, but held him tightly, refusing to release him as he cried.

Asuka could feel Shinji's warmth against her own thin frame, and the tremors of his sorrow.

She held him close, long after his tears had dried.

~


End file.
